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SACRAMENTS AND SOCIETY 


A Study of the Origin and Value 
of Rites in Religion 


ALLAN WORTHINGTON COOKE 


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BOSTON 


RICHARD G. BADGER, PUBLISHER 
THE GORHAM PRESS 


Copyricut, 1924, py ALLAN W. CooKE 





All Rights Reserved 


Tue GorHam Press, Boston, U. S. A. 





PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


TO 

GEORGE HERBERT MEAD 

IN GRATEFUL APPRECIATION OF 
A DEBT WHICH I CAN 


NEVER REPAY 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/sacramentssociet0Ocook 


PREFACE 


CIRCUMSTANCES connected with the World War have 
prevented the earlier publication of the material herein pre- 
sented, though the manuscript was prepared in June, 1915, 
and submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts 
and Literature of the University of Chicago in candidacy 
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 

Not having read the manuscript during these nine years, 
I have returned to it with some measure of discreteness and 
feel that I can introduce it with less of personal prejudice, 
though with even more firm conviction, than I could have 
done at the time it was written. 

There is a good deal of illustrative material which might 
have been summarized or omitted, but it all contributes to the 
building up of the argument and when I was elaborating 
the thesis set forth, I felt that I must establish it on as 
broad a foundation as possible, culled from the published 
findings of competent and recognized observers in the field 
of primitive social customs. Had it been possible to recast 
the material, there is also much that might have been added, 
but it seemed incumbent on me to publish the material as it 
stood. 

The intervening years appear to me to have increased 
rather than diminished whatever interest there may attach 
to the thesis herein set forth, that Sacraments are an indis- 
pensable element in religion. We have seen, as one result of 
the destruction of war, a break down of many of the long 
established social sanctions, and a reviving insistence on the 
necessity of religion as one of the most potent agencies for 
social control. There has been for years a growing desire 
for something real in the way of corporate reunion of the 
various religious organizations which constitute Christendom, 


5 


6 Preface 


and some of these bodies have been suffering of late in the 
throes of controversy as to what do and what do not con- 
stitute the essentials in Christian docirine, while if my thesis 
be correct, doctrine itself is of secondary importance and the 
really necessary thing is the mystic ritual of the Sacraments. 

A Preface, as I conceive it, is a guide post to show the 
way to casual readers and overworked critics and reviewers. 
In all probability I shall disappoint two classes of my 
readers, if there be such. The one, those who contend for 
the purely “supernatural” element in the Sacraments, be- 
cause I try to justify them on indubitable natural grounds; 
the other, those who believe that religious rites savor of the 
magic and “miraculous” and must therefore be discarded, 
because I seek to prove that if they be discarded, with them 
we will discard the reality of religion. 

Dr. Robert Park, in a trenchant criticism of my manu- 
script, wrote me: 

“It is at this point (Chapter ix, “The Pagan Mysteries”), 
it seems to me, that the paper surrenders the psychological 
point of view. From here on the story is mainly historical 
and exegetical.” 

This is largely true, but the treatment seemed to me un- 
avoidable. It would have been possible, as Dr. Park sug- 
gested to me, to continue the analysis of cult and ritual, 
through both the Pagan and Christian Mysteries, on the basis 
of stiggestion and imitation, insisting that the “impulse” or 
“disposition” to develop a ritual for the outward expression 
of religion was there, and that whatever of intermingling or 
borrowing there may have been in the use or creation of 
rites, was the inevitable result of social contacts, but I felt 
that in the subsequent study of the historical evidence of 
what actually did happen, this psychological viewpoint might 
be taken for granted. 

I have tried to show that it was because both the Pagan 
and Christian Mysteries took shape under the social influ- 


Preface 7 


ences of the same Greco-Roman world that they have the 
same character, but that it was their external character only 
which was influenced by this habitat, both their existence and 
their persistence, being due to a practical need of our com- 
mon human nature. It has been said that “formerly we used 
to disparage religion if science was able to account for it 
(while) nowadays we disparage religion because science is 
unable to account for it.’ It should be remembered that 
science can only describe phenomena and the processes by 
which things seem to arise and events occur. Science can 
not touch the question of ultimate value, except in so far 
as it may tend to prove that fitness is probably one of the 
ultimate reasons for survival. Our judgment of value does 
not rest wholly on practical grounds, however. It is usually 
associated with an emotional reaction, which always signals 
value, and which is itself the product of some past experi- 
ence. This emotional reaction is a wonderful and a very 
real thing. I have sought to trace a part of its history, as 
associated with religious rites, but this is not to explain it. 
Whatever it be and whithersoever it may have come we 
must admit that it is real. Beyond this I do not attempt to 
go, but those who wish may carry on the argument from the 
realm of experience—the realm of scientific investigation— 
into the metaphysical field, and find in it, perchance, the 
eternal quality of reality and truth. 


All of the bibliographical data and most of the discussion 
of the more technical matters have been confined to the 
notes, which will be of little interest to the casual reader. 
But I may be pardoned, I trust, if I call attention to the fact 
that wherever I have ventured to offer an original contribu- 
tion relevant to the main thesis, this also has been put in the 
notes. On two or three moot questions, only indirectly 
related to the main discussion, I have a tentative suggestion 
to offer, as on the origin of the later signification of Mithra 
(p. 132), the interpretation of the Decrees of the Apostolic 


8 Preface 


Council in the fifteenth chapter of the Books of Acts, (p. 
150) and the origin of the number seven as a “sacred 
number” applied to the Sacraments of the Catholic Church. 
(p. 179.) 

I wish to express formally my indebtedness to Dean 
Matthews of the Divinity School of the University of 
Chicago, who suggested the particular study of the influence 
of Dionysius the Areopagite and to Prof. Park of the 
Department of Sociology, under whose personal advice and 
criticism the material was prepared. 


AGW OC; 
Boston, Mass. 
August, 1924. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 


I 
II 


The Priority of Rites in Religion 
The Nature of Myth 

The Genesis of Ceremonies 

The Character of Magic 
Primitive Religion 

The Evolution of a “Rite” 

The Function of the Rite, I 


_ The Function of the Rite, I 


The Pagan Mysteries . 

The Christian Mysteries 

The Doctrine of the Sacraments 
The Value of the Sacraments 


Index 


PAGE 
11 
28 
39 
34 
66 
79 
88 

102 
io 
144 
170 
209 
231 





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SACRAMENTS AND SOCIETY 


THE PRIORITY OF RITES IN RELIGION 


WHEREVER religion in any form exists, it finds its outward 
expression in some form of sacred rites; in fact the outward 
and visible element of religion is necessarily almost wholly 
a matter of rites. The African Bushman, who is about the 
lowest in the scale of social development of any of the living 
remnants of early primitivity, dances out his religion under 
the tropical moon while the higher civilizations of Greece 
and Egypt expressed their religious emotion in the compli- 
cated ritual of the Mysteries of Demeter and Isis. Whether 
it be the Alaskan Eskimo or the Mongol of Tibet, the Druids 
in Roman England or the Mussulman in British Egypt, 
everywhere and always the sacred rite is the most prominent 
part of religious worship, 

This can not be the result of mere coincidence; there 
must be some significance, some meaning to these rites, and 
it seems quite reasonable to suppose that were it not for the 
fact that they supplied some real need, we should not find 
them universally present, Yes, there must be some meaning 
in these rites and it is in the hope that we may discover 
something of what religious rites signify, and may under- 
stand, to some extent at least, the real service they perform, 
that this study has been undertaken. We shall find that 
whatever meaning there is lies hidden in the rite itself. In 
its earliest and purest form the religious rite is almost void 
of any “doctrinal” content, its meaning being such that it 


il 


12 Sacraments and Society 


can be felt, rather than expressed, and while the participants 
must have thought about the significance of the rites they 
were performing, it did not find any such statement in verbal 
form as would resemble our “creeds” at all, and one had 
to be part of the proceeding to appreciate it.’ 

One of the most difficult problems that confronts the 
observer of the customs of primitive peoples is this difficulty 
in discovering the meaning of their rites, and often we are 
surprised to find the most conflicting testimony on the part 
of actual observers, on this subject. 

We have become so accustomed to the idea that religion 
requires a rigid system of doctrine that it is difficult for us 
to conceive of anything worthy of the name religion, which 
could be without such a “theology” or body of doctrines. 
And yet in the most primitive forms of religion this is exactly 
what we find ; formal doctrine or statement of belief is almost 
entirely lacking. 

Professor W. Robertson Smith, whose opposition to the 
then current belief of the Free Church of Scotland cost him 
his chair at Aberdeen, insisted on this absence of creed in 
the earliest forms of religion, and pointed out the priority of 
rite over doctrine. This was over twenty-five years ago,’ 
but we have been very slow in appreciating the significance 
of this striking fact which he was the first to point out. 
During the interim, however, a great mass of evidence has 
been accumulating, and students of anthropology and of the 


1 The difference in attitude between one who is “on the inside” 
and one who is not, is strikingly illustrated in one of Prof. James’ 
Talks to Teachers, (N: Y. 1913), “On a certain Blindness in 
Human Beings.” 


2 Religion of the Semites, (Lond., new ed. 1894), pp. 16-18, et 
pass. “As a rule we find that while the practice was rigorously 
fixed, the meaning attached to it was extremely vague, and the 
same rite was explained by different people in different ways, 
without any question of orthodoxy or heterodoxy arising in 
consequence.” (ut supra.) 


The Priority of Rites in Religion 13 


history of religion are now corroborating the opinion of 
Prof. Smith, and pointing to the evidence to show that if 
evolution means the survival of the forms which are most 
adapted to cope with the problem of existence, and of those 
elements which supply the needed equipment in this struggle, 
then surely rites must be of the essence of religion. 

What, then, is the general character of a religious rite? 
Let us answer the question by an inspection of some repre- 
sentative examples, chosen almost at random out of the enor- 
mous fund available. * 

‘The religious ritual of the Cora Indians of Mexico com- 
prises elaborate dramatic ceremonies or dances, in which the 
actors or dancers identify themselves with the gods, such 
as the god of the Morning Star, the goddess of the Moon, 
and the divinities of the Rain.* These dances form the 
principal part of the Cora festivals and are accompanied by 
liturgical songs, the words of which the Indians believe to 
have been revealed to their forefathers by the gods and to 
exercise a direct magical influence upon the deities themselves 
and through them upon nature.’”® 

In North-Western Brazil there are two tribes of Indians 
who celebrate a festival in honor of their dead, in which the 
masked dancers imitate the actions and habits of certain 
beasts, birds and insects. The play of butterflies in the sun- 
shine, the swarming of sand flies in the air, the swift darting 
to and fro of the swallows, these and others are imperson- 


83] have used Dr. Frazer’s monumental work, The Golden 
Bough, (London, 3d. ed., 1911-15) 12 vols., in the way that I 
imagine it was intended to be used, as a storehouse of inform- 
ation, and have drawn my illustrations largely from that source. 
Referred to as G. B. 


4cf. infra. pp. 58 and 71. 


5 Frazer, Golden Bough, IX. 381; apud K. Th. Preuss, Die 
Navarit Expedition, I. Die Religion der Cora Indianen (Leipsic, 
1912), pp. XCII ff. | 


14 Sacraments and Society 


ated by the dancers, but these representations are no mere 
pastime, or diversion for the mourners, for “under the outer 
husk of beasts and birds and insects he believes that there lurk 
foul fiends and powerful spirits.” This mimicry is intended 
to bring blessings to the village and fertility to their planta- 
tions, and “the mysterious force which resides in the mask 
passes into the dancer, turns the man himself into a mighty 
demon, and endows him with the power of banning demons 
or earning their favor. Especially is it the intention by 
means of the mimicry to obtain for man control over demons 
of growth and the spirits of game and fish.” 

Still another example comes from the head-hunting Sea 
Dyaks of Borneo. After the taking of a human head, a 
feast is held in honor of their war-god or bird-chief, who 
lives far away above the skies. One of the actors imperson- 
ates this deity, “Singalang Burong” who is believed to be 
present in the person of the performer. A long liturgy 
called Mengap is chanted, by means of which the god is in- 
voked, but this invocation is not in the form of a direct ad- 
dress or prayer, but in the form of a myth, setting forth 
how the mythical hero Kling once made a head feast and 
summoned Singalang Burong to it. “The Dyak performer 
or performers then, as they walk up and down the long 
verandah of the house singing the mangap, in reality describe 
Kling’s Cawé Pala (head-feast), and how Singalang Burong 
was invited and came. In thought the Dyaks identify them- 
selves with Kling, and the resultant signification is that the 
recitation of this story is an invocation to Singalang Burong, 
who is supposed to come not to Kling’s house only, but to 
the actual Dyak house where the feast is celebrated; and he 
is received by a particular ceremony, and is offered food or 
sacrifice.” 7 


6 Frazer, Golden Bough, IX. 381; apud Th. Koch-Griinberg, Zwei 
Jahre unter den Indianern, (Berlin, 1909-1910) i. 130ff; ii. 169ff. 
7 Frazer, op. cit., IX. 383, 384 n. 1; apud Rev. J. Perham, ‘“Men- 


The Priority of Rites in Religion 15 


Whether we should consider such ceremonies as these 
religious or not, need not here detain us, for the point we 
are insisting on is that the primary and indispensable thing 
in religion is the rite, and if one should consider that these 
ceremonies are not religious, then it is evident that in these 
cases at least, rite antedates and precedes religion. If, on the 
other hand, we admit that here we find evidences of a primi- 
tive type of religion, it seems quite certain that they are 
manifested in the rite itself, 

Andrew Lang wrote his Myth, Ritual and Religion (2v., 
1887) in support of the thesis that “the existence—even 
among savages—of comparatively pure, if inarticulate, re- 
ligious beliefs” * could be demonstrated, and subsequently de- 
fined this “pure” belief as “the germ of a faith in a Maker 
and Judge of men” from which he believed religion sprang. ° 
In the second volume of this work he devotes a whole chap- 
ter to the attempt to show that the Australians possess the 
“germ” of such a belief, in spite of some arguments to the 
contrary. His emphasis on Australia was “because the vast 
continent contains the most archaic and backward of existing 
races.” 1° Among his chief witnesses are Howitt and Spencer 
and Gillen, from whose writings on the subject, in spite of 


gap, the song of the Dyak Sea Feast,” Jour Straits Settlement 
Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, II. 123 ff. (Singapore, Dec. 1878). 
cf. E. H. Gomes, Seventeen Years Among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo 
(Lond. 1911), pp. 218 ff., who adds the following details: ‘‘The 
singing of this song takes up the whole night. It begins before 8 
P, M. and lasts till next morning. * * * On the third day of 
the festival a pig is sacrificed, and the people shout together at 
short intervals until a hawk is seen flying in the heavens. The 
hawk is Singalang Burong, who has taken that form to manifest 
himself to them. He has accepted their offerings and has heard 
their cry.” 

8op. cit., I. xi. (New ed., 1899). 

9 Lang, Making of Religion. (London, 1898, 2nd 1900). 


10 TT, 33, 


~ 


16 Sacraments and Society 


the fact that they are so familiar, but because of the very 
backwardness of these particular peoples, we may find still 
further evidence, tacitly admitted by Lang, that even where 
the presence of “pure” religion may be in doubt, there rite 
exercises undisputed domain. Howitt* gives a detailed 
description of the initiation of several Katungal ** boys. The 
account is too long to quote in full, but as it detracts from its 
effect to attempt to abridge it, the best we can do will be 
to select a few significant passages from the picturesque 
narrative. 


“As soon as we had reached the camp and the men were 
distributed through it, the distant roaring sound of the 
Mudthis ** was heard and the whole camp was instantly in 
commotion. The women started up, and seizing their rugs 
and blankets, hastily went with their children to a vacant 
space on the north side of the encampment, where they recom- 
menced the “tooth’”-song. Meanwhile the men were stalking 
about among the camps shouting “Ha! Wah!’ commanding 
silence among the women. Ina very short time these with 
their children were huddled together in a close group, sur- 
rounded by the men, who were stamping a dance to the 





11 Native Tribes of South-East Australia. (London 1904), pp. 
529 ff. 


12 “Fishermen”; Katung—the sea. A branch of the Coast 
Murring or Yuin tribe, along the coast of New South Wales, from 
Cape Howe nearly to Sidney. 


13], e. “bull-roarer.” ‘The merest amateur who cuts a thin 
slab of wood to the shape of a laurel leaf, and ties to one end a 
good thick piece of string three or four feet long, has only to 
whirl the instrument on his forefinger and he will at once get a 
taste of its windy note.” (Marett, Threshhold of Religion, (Lond. 
1909), p. 155). Full bibliography on its use in Fraser, G. B., 3d 
ed. XI. 228, n2. cf. also Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion, I. 273; 
Harrison, J. E., Themis, (Camb. 1912), p. 61f., where (n. 3) the 
identfication of K@yoc in the Greek Mysteries with this instru- 
ment is discussed. 


The Priority of Rites in Religion 17 


word “Wah!” finally closing in round them, and silently 
raising their hands to the sky. This silent gesture again 
means “Daramulun, whose name cannot be lawfully spoken 
there. * * * The women and children were now pushed to- 
gether into as small a compass as possible, * * *. Skin rugs 
and blankets were then placed over them, so that they were 
completely hidden, * * * and as I left I could hear the 
muffled sound of the “tooth’’-song being sung by the women 
under their coverings. | 
2k * * * x 

“The intention of all that is done at this ceremony is to 
make a momentous change in the boy’s life; the past is to 
be cut off from him by a gulf which he can never repass. 
His connection with his mother as her child is broken off, 
and he becomes henceforth attached to the men. * * * To 
do all this is partly the object of the ceremonies, and the 
process by which it is reached is a singular one. The cere- 
monies are intended to impress and terrify the boy in such 
a manner that the lesson may be indelible, and may govern 
the whole of his future life. But the intention is also to 
amuse in the intervals of the serious rites. 

“The ceremonies, therefore, are marked by what may be 
called major and minor stages, and the intervals are filled 
in by magic dances, by amusing interludes and buffoonery, in 
which all the men take part, excepting the Kabos, whose duty 
is to unceasingly explain and admonish during the whole 
ceremony ; to point the moral and adorn the tale. * * * 

“On the summit of the hill there was another halt, and 
here was the first magic dance. The boys and their Kabos 
stood in a row and the men danced in a circle before them, 
shouting the name for “legs.” * * * One of the Gommeras 
darted into this enclosed space, and danced the magic dance. 
This is done as if sitting almost on the heels but the knees 
are widely apart, and the two hands are extended downwards 
until the fingers almost touch the ground. The medicine- 


18 Sacraments and Society 


man then hops backwards and forwards with a staring ex- 
pression of face, his head vibrates from side to side, and 
he suddenly shows, sometimes after apparently internal strug- 
gles, one of his Joias 1* between his teeth. This is supposed 
to have been brought from within himself. The other men 
are meantime dancing round him, and I have occasionally 
seen him work himself into a kind of ecstatic frenzy, and 
fall down, once almost into the fire, utterly exhausted. While 
this was going on, the Kabos spoke in earnest tones to their 
boys, explaining to them the great and deadly powers of 
the Gommeras, and the necessity of their obeying every in- 
struction given to them. 3 

“After a further ascent of a steep mountain ridge, there 
was another halt before crossing the summit of the range 
* * * After circling round the boys twice, the procession 
resolved itself into a ring in front of the boys and the men 
danced the usual magic dance * * * (and) then, ceasing to 
dance, rushed to the boys in an excited manner, old Yibai- 
malian leading the way, and for the first time went through 
one of their most characteristic performances. They all 
shouted “Ngai!” meaning “Good” and at the same time 
moved their arms and hands as if passing something from 
themselves to the boys, who, being instructed by the Kabos, 
moved their hands and arms as if pulling a rope toward 
themselves, the palms of the hands being held upwards. The 
intention of this is that the boys shall be completely filled— 
saturated, | might say—with the magic proceeding from the 
initiated and the medicine-men, so that Daramulun will like 
them,” * * * 

“The old men being ready, we went down a cattle track 
to the lower glen where a place was chosen and a space cleared 
for the tooth ceremony. * * * A great stringy-bark tree was 
close to the northern side, and on this the Bega Gommera cut 


14 Pieces of quartz crystal, used by the medicine-men, and be- 
lieved to be projected into people. cf. op. cit., p. 357-58. 


The Priority of Rites in Religion 19 


in relief the figure of a man of life-size in the attitude of 

dancing. This represented Daramulun, whose ceremonies 

they are, and who, as is taught to the novices, is cognizant 

of the Kuringal proceedings. 
* * * * * 

“At this time the scene was striking. Some of the men 
were standing at the east side of the cleared space, some on 
the west side, the boys and their Kabos being on the north, 
almost at the foot of the tree on which the figure, about three 
feet in length, of Daramulun was cut. In front of them were 
(the) motionless disguised figures. The Gommera Brupin 
was at a little distance almost hidden in some scrub, and old 
Gunjerung, the head Gommera, stood apart from all as was 
his custom, leaning on his staff, waiting for the moment when 
all being ready, he would give the signal for the ceremony 
to commence, | 

* x * x * 

“Gunjerung now signed with his staff, and the masked 
figures, springing up, rushed to the novices, and commenced 
to dance to the words “Wirri-wirri-wirri,’ that is “Quick, 
quick, quick.” As they did this, one of the Kabos knelt 
behind his boy, with his right knee on the ground, and the 
boy sat on his left as a seat. The other Kabo came behind 
and drew the boy’s head on to his breast, having his left 
arm around his chest, and his right hand over the boy’s eyes. 
The Kabo kneeling on the ground held the boy’s legs, his 
feet being in the holes. 

“From behind the bushes where he had been concealed, 
the Gommera Brupin now suddenly emerged dancing, bear- 
ing in one hand a short wooden club and in the other a 
piece of wood about eight inches long and chisel-shaped at 
the end. Being the representative of Daramulun, he was 
clothed only in a complete suit of charcoal dust,*® 


15 On the significance of this smearing of the body in initiatory 
rites vide Harrison, Themis, p. 17 ff. For the older view that it 


20 Sacraments and Society 


“The boy’s eyes being covered, he danced into the space 
between them and the masked men to excited shouts of 
“Wirri,’ to which the other men were also dancing, and 
thus approached the first boy. He now handed his imple- 
ments to the man nearest him, and seizing the boy’s head with 
his hands, applied his lower incisor to the left upper incisor 
of the boy, and forcibly pressed it upwards. He then, danc- 
ing all the time, placed the chisel on the tooth and struck 
a blow on the mallet. This time the tooth was loosened 
and I could see the blood. Some of the dancing men now 
came between the boy and me, so that I lost count of the 
blows for a few seconds. However, I counted seven and 
I think that there was at least one more. The tooth then 
fell out of its socket, and Brupin gave it to one of the old 
men.1¢ The boy was then led aside by the Kabo, who told 
him that he must on no account spit out the blood, but 
swallow it, otherwise the wound would not heal. The stoical 
indifference shown by this boy, to what must have been an 
exquisitely painful operation, was most surprising. I 
watched him carefully, and he could not have shown less 
feeling had he been a block of wood. But as he was led 
away I noticed that the muscles of his legs quivered in an 
extraordinary manner. 

* * oH * cone 


“Twice when the proceedings flagged a little, Yibai-malian 
made me a sign for Mudthi, namely moving the forefinger of 
the right hand in a small circle, and I sent my messenger to 
the mound of rocks to sound the bull-roarer out of sight. 
Directly the sound was heard the whole camp, excepting the 


was related to a symbolic cleansing wide Andrew Lang, op. cit., 
I. 274 ff. ' 


16 Frazer suggests that this rite may be intended to procure 
immortality, “the tooth regarded as a vital part of the man which 
was sacrificed to ensure another life for him after death.” 
(Gd, Bi teT). 


The Priority of Rites in Religion 21 


Kabos and novices, was in a state of excitement, the men 
shouting “Huh! huh!” and the dancing went on with re- 
newed vigour. 

“The novices were thus kept in a constant state of excite- 
ment and suspense until, as I have said, at about three in 
the morning, when the old men danced to the word Kair, 
that is “the end, the finish.” The magic fire was let burn 
low, the boys were laid on their couch of leaves, and all 
hands rolled themselves into their rugs or blankets and 
slept.” 


~The one outstanding impression that this account must 
leave with the reader is, it seems to me, that here we have 
a multitude of rites,—but can we say nothing but rites? 
Before the boys were led back to the camp, we are told, in 
a section which I have not reproduced, that the Kabos sol- 
emnly informed them that Daramulun “lived beyond the sky 
and watched what the Murring did. When a man died he 
met him and took care of him. It was he who first made the 
Kuringal “ and taught it to their fathers, and he taught them 
also to make weapons, and all that they know. The Gom- 
meras receive their powers from him, and he gives them 
Krugullung.® He is the great Biamban ?® who can do any- 
thing and go anywhere, and he gave the tribal laws to their 
fathers, who have handed them down from father to son 
until now.” Evidently these rites are not devoid of meaning, 
but the very fact that this verbal instruction is reserved till 
the very last, suggests that the rites have already inculcated 
it and are the more necessary element of the whole, if it is 
possible, in fact to separate them at all. But what I wish 
to insist upon is that the rite itself has produced a very 
definite effect. It makes a man out of a boy, and what was 
even more evident, from the lively narrative, it made a mere 





17%, e. this ceremony of initiation. 
18 Another name for the magic quartz crystal. 
19 Great Master. 


ee Sacraments and Society 


boy submit to the knocking out of one of his front teeth in 
a most brutal way, with no more emotion than if he had 
“been a block of wood.” 

Among the Arunta and Ilpirra tribes of central Australia, 
the initiation ceremonies are very elaborate, and extend over 
a period of some fifteen years, from the time when a boy 
is about ten years of age till he reaches an age of perhaps 
twenty-five. The last of these rites, the Engwura, which is 
a sort of fire ordeal, makes the novice a full member of the 
tribe. We can not here describe this rite in detail, but it is 
of interest to note what Spencer and Gillen say of its sig- 
nificance.?° 

“Tt is in this way that the boy during the initiation cere- 
monies is instructed, for the first time in any of the sacred 
matters referring to the totems, and it is by means of the 
performances which are concerned with certain animals, or 
rather, apparently with the animals, but in reality with 
Alcheringa 7+ individuals who were the direct transformations 
of such animals, that the traditions dealing with this subject, 
which is of the greatest importance in the eyes of the natives, 
are firmly impressed upon the mind of the novice, to whom 
everything which he sees and hears is new and surrounded 
with an air of mystery. * * * The natives themselves say that 
the ceremony has the effect of strengthening all who pass 
through it. It imparts courage and wisdom, makes the men 
more kindly natured and less apt to quarrel; in short, it makes 
them ertwa murra oknirra, words which respectively mean 
“man, good, great or very,” the word good being, of course, 
used with the meaning attached to it by the native. Evidently 
the main objects of it are, firstly, to bring the young men 
under the control of the old men, whose commands they have 
to obey implicitly; secondly, to teach them habits of self- 

20 Native Tribes of Central Australia, (Lond., 1899), p. 229-230; 
271-272. 

2174, e. the remote past. 


The Priority of Rites in Religion 23 


restraint and hardihood; and thirdly, to show to the younger 
men who have arrived at mature age, the sacred secrets of 
the tribe which are concerned with the Churinga ?? and the 
totems with which they are associated. 

* * * * * 

“It must be remembered that it is now for the first time 
that the Wurtja ?? hears anything of these traditions and sees 
the ceremonies performed, in which the ancestors of the tribe 
are represented as they were, and acting as they did during 
life. In various accounts of initiation ceremonies of the 
Australian tribes, as, for example, in the earliest one ever 
published—the one written by Collins in 1804—we meet with 
descriptions of performances in which different animals are 
represented, but except in the case of the Arunta tribe, no 
indication of the meaning and signification of these ceremon- 
ies has been forthcoming beyond the fact that they are asso- 
ciated with the totems. In the Arunta and Ilpirra tribes they 
are not only intimately associated with the totemic system, 
but have a very definite meaning. Whether they have a 
similar significance in the other tribes we have as yet no 
definite evidence to show, but it is at all events worthy of 
note that while the actual initiation rites vary from tribe to 
tribe, consisting in some of the knocking out of the teeth, 
and in others of circumcision, etc. in all, or nearly all, an im- 
portant part of the ceremony consists in showing to the 
novices certain dances, the important and common feature of 
which is that they represent the actions of special totemic 
animals. In the Arunta tribe, however, they have a very 
definite meaning. At the first glance it looks much as if all 
that they were intended to represent were the behavior of 








22 Something sacred or secret. “Most frequently used to mean 
one of the sacred stones or sticks of the Arunta, which are the 
equivalents of the bull-roarers of the other tribes.” 


23 The name for a novice in the circumcision rite, after he has 
been painted but before the actual operation. 


24 Sacraments and Society 


certain animals, but in reality they have a much deeper mean- 
ing, for each performer represents an ancestral individual 
who lived in the Alcheringa. He was a member of a group 
of individuals, all of whom just like himself, were the direct 
descendants or transformations of the animals, the names of 
which they bore. It is as a reincarnation of the never-dying 
spirit part of one of these semi-animal ancestors that every 
member of the tribe is born, and, therefore, when born he, 
or she, bears of necessity the name of the animal or plant 
of which the Alcheringa ancestor was a transformation or 
descendant.”?* 


Perhaps enough has been said by way of illustration of the 
priority of rites in matters of religion, but it might be ob- 
jected that all the illustrations here given have been chosen 
from barbarous and uncultured peoples; so let us turn to 
Rome at the height of its glory and see what we find there. 

In his description of the religious festivals at Rome during 
the Republic, Fowler 2° summarizes several authorities on the 
subject as follows: “In all these works the one point insisted 
on at the outset is this: that the Romans were more interested 
in the cult of their deities, that is in the ritual and routine by 
which they could be rightly and successfully propitiated, than 
in the character and personality of the deities themselves.” 
The Roman religion consisted almost wholly of ceremonial 
observances, processions, and festivals, libations and sacri- 
fices, all of them elaborate and impressive, the details of 
which were strictly prescribed and scrupulously observed. 
Cicero ** himself points to the important thing in religion, as 
he knew it, when he says :“If we wish to compare ourselves 


24 0p. cit., p. 227-228. 

25 Fowler, W. Warde, The Roman Festivals of the Period of the 
Republic. (London, 1899), p. 333. 

26 De Natura Deorum (II. 3, 8) Si conferre columus nostra cum 
externis, ceteris rebus aut pares aut inferiores reperiemur, re- 
ligione, id est cultu deorum, multo superiores. 


The Priority of Rites in Religion 25 


with foreigners, though in certain things we will be found 
only their equals or even their inferiors, in religion, that is 
in the cult of the gods, we are much superior to them.” As 
he has said just previously that it was through the observance 
of the “requirements of religion” that the state had become 
great it is quite evident that he found the superiority of the 
Romans in their sacred rites. 

Among these rites, none were more characteristic, prob- 
ably, than those connected with the worship of Vesta. One 
of these, the Vestalia, may be described briefly as follows. 27 
On the seventh of June the sacred storehouse of the Temple 
of Vesta (penus?& Vestae) was thrown open to the public, 
who, for seven days thronged it barefoot. 2° The significance 
of this is not evident unless we remember that at all other 
times these sacred precincts were forbidden to all men but 
the Pontifex Maximus. The days of the festival were 
holidays, on which no public business could be performed, 
but more than this they were solemn or sacred days on which 
the priestess of Vesta was forbidden to cut her nails or per- 
form other specified duties. During these holy days the 
Vestal Virgins crushed the first fruits of corn, which had 
been gathered about a month earlier, and from the flour 
thus made, prepared sacred cakes which were solemnly 
offered on plain earthenware dishes of an ancient pattern. *° 
No doubt because of this ancient rite the millers and bakers 
decorated their shops, and all mules, as well, were garlanded 
and bedecked with cakes.** At the end of eight days, that is 





27 Fowler, op. cit., pp. 148 ff. 

28 Penus, originally food, then “store-house” (cf. Cicero, op. cit., 
II.68) the sacred center of the temple of Vesta. On the Penates 
vide Themis, pp. 300 ff. 

29 cf. Ovid, Fasti 6, 395 ff. for a description of his own experi- 
ence, 

30 Varro, De Lingua Latina, VI. 32. 

31 Mules were used to turn the grinding mills. 


26 Sacraments and Society 


on the 15th of June, the room of the temple (aedas) was care- 
fully swept by the Vestals and with the last act of this formal 
cleansing, the restrictions of the festival came to an end. %? 
This is, in brief, all that there was to the festival of the 
Vestalia, so prominent in that religious observance which 
Cicero thought had led to the glory of Rome! It is worthy 
of note that the duties here performed by the Vestal Virgins 
appear to have no immediate connection with the fire which 
it was their sacred duty to guard, and yet there must have 
been some remote connection between these ceremonies and 
that primary duty. Dr. Frazer was the first to suggest ** 
that the origin of the Vestal Virgins was probably to be 
found in the tending of the domestic hearth by the King’s 
daughters, and the ceremonies just mentioned would seem 
to have been perpetuated from the time when the duties of 
these maidens included the rest of the household duties as 
well. Cleaning the house, preparing the food and tending the 
sacred fire of the hearth seem to have come down from a for- 
gotten past together, and in the Vestalia these elements of 
the ancient household routine had come to constitute the 
whole of the sacred rite.** As with this portion, so with 


82 Dionysius of Halicarnasus, writing in the time of Augustus, 
remarked on the simplicity of these rites, and expressed his 
admiration for “a people which thus walked in the ways of their 
fathers, not deviating from the ancient rites into extravagance 
and display.” (Antic. Rom., II. 23) vide Frazer, G. B., II. 203 n. 1. 

33 Journal of Philology, XIV. (1885) No. 28, pp. 145 ff. 

84 The duties of the Vestals are given by Servius, Ad Virg. 
Eccl., viii. 82. Their association with harvest and fertility festi- 
vals deceived even Varro, cf. St. Augustine, De Civitatis Dei, 
vii. 24, and suggested that identification of Vesta with the Harth. 

The “new fire’ was obtained on March ist; (Festus 106) cf. 
Fowler, op. cit., p. 147, n. 5. The flamines or “kindlers’ were 
originally associated with this rite. Frazer suggests that they 
may have been originally the King’s sons, (G. B., II. 199). 

For similar rites of cleansing storehouses etc., especially that 
of the Creek Indians, cf. Frazer, G. B., II. 72 ff. 


The Priority of Rites in Religion 27 


the rest of the religion of the Romans, it was primarily, at 
least, if not well nigh wholly, a matter of rites. There do not 
seem to have been any doctrines attached to these rites, the 
origin and significance of which appear to have been quite 
unknown. The priority of rite is, here at least, clearly estab- 
lished. Doctrine may, then, be practically lacking in re- 
ligion, but it nowhere exists without some form of rite. We 
have found evidence, however, of an inchoate “tradition” or 
myth associated with the rites in some of the examples which 
we have examined, and this raises the question of the relation 
between myths and rites, which we must now consider. 


II 
THE NATURE OF MYTH 


SINCE most of us begin our education with Mother Goose 
and Grimm, or some other fairy tales, and get our first taste 
of literature from Aesop or the legends of early Greek 
heroes, we are likely to have a double misconception of 
mythology. In the first place we most of us think of a myth 
as being a mere invention, a figment of the imagination, and 
furthermore we conceive of its purpose as being the teaching 
of some lesson; in a word we make it purely intellectual. 
We are prone to consider myth as something that never hap- 
pened, but is, nevertheless, essentially rational, when in real- 
ity a genuine myth never did anything but happen and is 
fundamentally irrational! 

The natural birth of a real myth can be seen almost any 
day in any house in the land that is gladdened by the playful 
prattle of children. What mother but has had to reason with 
herself to keep from flying to pieces at the ceaseless flow of 
running comment which drowned out everything else: 
“Mother, I’m making a cake, mother, mother! MOTHER!! 
I’m making a cake, I’m making a cake. And now in goes 
the sugar, I’m putting in the sugar, Mother, the sugar.” ? 
It seems a far cry from this to an Australian jungle, but 
here is what Spencer and Gillen record of the making of a 
Nurtunja, a sort of human effigy, in a totem ceremony of the 
Alice Springs natives: * “Four of the Purula men then began 





1Of course there is no sugar, probably nothing but a stick to 
serve as a stirring spoon; the whole process is pure make-believe, 
and the running comment explains it. 

2 Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 284. 


28 


The Nature of Myth 29 


to decorate the pole with alternate rings of red and white 
down. Each of them took a short twig, bound a little fur 
string around one end, dipped the brush thus made into the 
blood, and then smeared this over the place where the down 
was to be fixed on. The blood on congealing formed an 
excellent adhesive material. All the time this was taking 
place, the men sang a monotonous chant, the words of which 
were merely a constant repetition of some such simple refrain 
as, ‘Paint it around with rings and rings,’ ‘the Nurtunja of 
the Alcheringa,’ ‘paint the Nurtunja with rings.’ Every 
now and again they burst out into loud singing, starting on 
a high note and gradually descending, the singing dying away 
as the notes got lower and lower, producing the effect of 
music dying away in the distance.” 

Probably there are other subjects which have caused as 
much discussion and about which there have been as many 
conflicting theories, but it would be hard to imagine one that 
could produce more varieties of speculation than has this 
very problem of determining the origin and purpose of 
myth. ° 





3 On this subject the books are many. The more modern view 
is displacing such opinions as those of Lang (Myth, Ritual and 
Religion) though he admits that the mysteries are dramatizations 
of myth (1.19); Fiske, J. (Myths and Myth Makers) et. al. “The 
former systems of exegesis, from Euhemerus and the Stoics to 
Creuzer and Max Miiller, have this feature in common; they 
consider myths and religions as the product of a special faculty 
of man, set in motion by an impression from without, and histor- 
ical recollection, or an abstract idea—or it may be led astray by 
some verbal will-o’-the-wisp. The great superiority in the new 
system lies in the fact that it emphasizes the stringent ties 
which connect the evolution of cults and myths with the sum 
total of human faculties, and the progress of civilization both 
moral and material.” (Reinach, Cults, Myths and Religions, 
(Lond., 1912, p. xiii.) vide etiam Brinton, Religious Sentiment, 
(N. Y., 1876), p. 156; Frazer, G. B., IX p. 385 ff., where a possible 
basis for the “reconciliation” of two schools of interpretation is 
suggested. 


30 Sacraments and Society 


Andrew Lang was probably right when he insisted that in 
all mythology—and in religion where myths “‘intrude”—there 
are two elements, one rational, the other irrational, but recent 
investigators have tended toward a reversal of his conclusion 
that religion found its earliest expression in what, to him, 
appeared to be the perfectly “rational and transparent” belief 
in a Supreme Being.* It is coming to be more and more 
generally understood that myth was not originally legend, 
in the strict sense of the word, at all, but audible rite, if such 
a term is permissible. 

It is important to an appreciation of this fact that we 
should make a clear distinction between the “mythical” or 
legendary and the religious or cult myth. The former of 
these is more properly called “folk-lore”’ while the latter, 
which is the true myth, may be called “cult-lore.’5> The 
myth is so intimately bound up with the rite that they may be 
considered practically simultaneous in origin, and to be 
separated only in theoretical abstraction. Of their probable 
origin I shall speak later, but here we are concerned only 
with this closeness of relationship between them. Subse- 
quently the myth may come to be detached from the rite, for 
various reasons, and gradually transformed till it is almost 
past recognition. While originally a myth, it now comes to 
be incorporated in the body of folk-lore. So long as it con- 
tinues to be a myth, it retains its primitive odor of sanctity 


4 The most recent students of the subject seem to prefer, on the 
whole, the view that there was a “pre-animistic” era, in which 
the conception of mysterious powers was not yet strictly per- 
sonal. Of this “Dynamistic”’ school are the writers whose views 
we have here followed. van Gennep, in Rites de Passage, (Paris 
1909), pp. 8 ff. gives a summary of recent and earlier writers on 
both sides of the discussion. 

5cf. Ames, BE. S., The Psychology of Religious Experience, 
(Boston, 1910), p. 150; Themis, pp. 330-331; Newell, W. W., “Rit- 
ual regarded as the Dramatization of Myth” in Memoirs of Inter- 
national Congress of Anthropology, (Chicago, 1894), 237 ff. 


The Nature of Myth 31 


and is guarded from profanation with great care, but once 
separated from the rite it may be bandied about from mouth 
to mouth without let or hindrance. “An Algonkin,” says 
William Jones, ® “holds that the proper time to recite a myth 
is in winter, and that its recitation shall be attended with 
some kind of formality; and that to tell a myth out of 
season and without formality is to take chances with some- 
thing beyond human power.” What I would call attention 
to just here is that the myth is not the recounting of some- 
thing to be believed, but is the verbal description, in word- 
symbols, of the acts performed in the rite.’ 

We have already mentioned some illustrations of this con- 
nection of the myth with the rite, as a sort of running com- 
ment, when discussing the rites, but we may notice some 
other instances, in order to direct attention to this primary 
character of the myth. 

In the Grizzly Bear dance of the Indians, a chant describ- 
ing the restlessness of the bear in early spring when he pre- 
pares to emerge from his den, accompanies the pantomime of 
the dancers: 


I begin to grow restless in the spring. 
I take my robe, 

My robe is sacred, 

I wander in the summer. ° 





6“The Algonkin Manitou,” in Journal of American Folk-Lore, 
XVIII. (1905) p. 189. Cushing says that among the Zuni, 
though a myth was told only at night during the winter, it could 
be told during the day at other seasons of the year. (Bureau of 
American Ethnology, Report: XI. (1889-1890), p. 369). 

7™*As man is a speaking as well as a motor animal, any com- 
plete human ceremony usually contains both elements, speech 
and action, or as the Greeks would put it, we have in a rite 
ta Sompeva and also 74 él toig Sowpévotg Acyoueva” (Harri- 
son, Themis, p. 329). 

Sut supra from W. McClintock, The Old North Trail, (Lond., 
1910), p. 264 ff. 


4 Sacraments and Society 


During certain ceremonies connected with the propitiation of 
the Wollunqua, a gigantic snake which the Warramunga 
tribe of northern Australia revere as a totem animal, the 
natives build a large sandy mound, which is associated with 
one of the myths of Wollunqua, or rather the myth is asso- 
ciated with the building of the mound, during which it is 
chanted. It recounts the deeds of the giant snake, and its 
refrains are couched in words which have come to be mean- 
ingless to the hearers, but are said to be the language of the 
ancient and legendary past. ® 

This use of words which have lost their meaning is, it 
seems to me, probably the first step in the separation of the 
myth from the rite, or perhaps it would be better to say the 
first stage in the evolution of a legend. While they were used 
with the rite, the action continued to supply their meaning, 
which must otherwise have been wholly unintelligible. Sooner 
or later, however, the way would be open for the substi- 
tution of a new myth, because of the need of an explanation 
for the rite itself which, like the ancient words, would have 
ceased to be understood. 





cf. Dorsey, G. A., The Pawnee, (Washington, 1906), pp. 350-351, 
where a similar song, though for a different ceremony is found: 
“The Bears had told her to sing the song, and promised that if 
they heard it and decided to help her, she would find on the next 
morning cedar limbs around her tipi. The song she sang was 
this: 

Some one spoke and told me. 

Yonder shall come, etc. 

That my father stood where I now stand. 

Yonder shall come, yonder shall come. 

* * * * 

I am now imitating the Bear. 

I am now acting like one. 

Yonder shall come, ete. 


9Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Australia, (London 
1904) pp. 234-2365. 


The Nature of Myth 33 


Among the Omaha there is another striking example of 
this early identity between the rite and its verbal symbol, 
which is even more peculiar. Many of the songs of the 
Omaha can not be said to have words at all, that is, words 
which carry any clear meaning, for we are told that in them 
the voice was “carried by vacables only.” ?° But in spite of 
this, the song was able to “convey a well understood mean- 
ing.” Weare not told how this could be, but the association 
of the songs with mimetic acts in the rites makes it perfectly 
possible. In fact the practice of the Australian tribe and 
that of the American Indian tribe appear, in this respect, to 
be strictly analogous. 

The whole subject of the development of myth, and its 
subsequent separation from rite, in the form of legend, 
finally developing into literature and drama™ is too com- 
plicated for us to enter into here, and to do so would not 
further our purpose, which is to point out that at first it had 
nothing of the character of formal doctrine. We can only sug- 
gest the probable course of its separation from the rite of 
which it was at first an integral part, and the beginning of 
the element of teaching which later became associated with 
it. 

In summarizing the most important points contained in 
his exhaustive study of the myths of the Cheyenne Indians 


10 Fletcher, Alice C., “The Omaha Tribe,” Bureau of American 
ELthnology, Report, XXVII. (1905-1906), p. 373. A phonograph 
record of the singing of a certain song by an old man was 
compared after some years with a repetition of the same song, 
without discovering any variation. The native was about sev- 
enty, and must have sung this without change for about fifty 
years. On being asked how this could be, he replied: ‘There 
is but one way to sing a song.” 

11 vide Miss Harrison’s Themis, pp. 333 n. 1, 339, 341, ff.; 
Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, 5v., (Oxford 1896-1909), V. 
230ff.; Powell, J. W., Bureau of Amer. Ethnol. Reports, XIX. 
(1897-98), Introduction, p. Ixxix. 

12 Dorsey, G. A., The Cheyenne, (Chicago, 1905), p. 50. 


34 Sacraments and Society 


Dorsey considers first the probable origin of their rites, as 
revealed in these myths, 18 with this conclusion: “Thus it 
appears that the tales collectively furnish us an account of 
two culture heroes, or one culture hero with two names, who 
left the camp, visited a mountain, witnessed a ceremony, 
obtained a bundle, returned to the camp and performed a 
ceremony as it had been witnessed, with the result that the 
tribe was rescued from famine at that particular time and 
was furnished means for warding off the famine and their 
enemies in the future. There is no word of explanation as 
to why the ceremony was given or how it was originated in 
the true sense of the word. ‘Standing-Medicine’ and 
‘Erect-Horns’ simply bring to the people a special medicine, 
in the form of a ceremony which they had witnessed and 
in which they had been instructed by supernatural beings.” 
Weare here at the stage when the myth is still closely related 
to the rite, and although beginning to be separated from 
the performance of the rite, and to take on the legendary 
form, there is as yet no explanation. The myth has not 
begun to be aetiological. ‘The only known origin and the 
only significance of these myths is still found in the rites, 
the “medicine” which they describe. 

Boas, ** whose special field of study has been mythology, 





13 Mr. Dorsey uses the word “myth” here in the wider sense 
of legend. The Rev. J. O. Dorsey, likewise, in his study of the 
Siouan Cults (Bureau of American Anthropology, Report XI., 
pp. 368-369), says that myth is parallel to legend, both being 
considered as “lying tales,’ while both are distinguished from 
the superhuman recitals which deal with Wakanda. This con- 
fusion could be avoided if the word myth were reserved for its 
original signification of the “recitative’ connected with the 
rites. Vide Themis, p. 331, and reference there to the definition 
by van Gennep, in his paper Was ist Mythus, where this pro- 
posal was made. 


14 Journal of American Folk-Lore, “The Growth of Indian Myth- 
ologies,”’ IX. (1896), pp. 1-11. 


The Nature of Myth 35 


and in which he is admittedly preeminent, dismisses the idea 
that the myths arose from an attempted explanation of the 
phenomena of nature, and insists that we must “give up the 
attempts at off-hand explanations of myths as fanciful, and 
we must admit that, also, explanations given by the Indians 
themselves are often secondary, and do not reflect the true 
origin of the myths.” It is when the meaning of the rite 
ceases to be felt that the myth first tends to take on a more 
definite form, and one of two things may happen; either the 
rite may be given a new interpretation, through a change in 
the myth accompanying it, or the myth may be separated 
from the rite, with the result that both are now free to take 
on new forms, each going its independent way, and both, 
now forced to depend solely on their own vitality, are liable 
to extinction and oblivion.*® Perhaps in no two discover- 
able instances will the course of this separation correspond 
in all of its stages, but agreement in the beginning and in 
the final outcome of the change, suggests that there are no 
important variations in the process. 

One “legend” of the Pawnee preserves in itself so much 
that is suggestive that it is worthy of reproduction in its 
entirety, particularly since it is both simple and brief, and 
for this reason may be deemed comparatively pure. 


“The Lost Warrior and the Singing Buffalo Medicine” 


“There were many warriors who were on the war-path, 





15 Religion points the way to the development of both art 
and morality. The sense of depletion, of insufficient satisfac- 
tion, would seem to be the origin of the one; the feeling of 
obligation, of the other. Their difference from religion lies, 
fundamentally in that they both assume knowledge, a content 
of past experience which, in their inception at least, marks them 
off clearly from religion. A ceremony which originated with 
religion may thus pass over into either art or morality, or 
both. cf. supra note 11 on Drama, and infra p. 63 n. 19 on magic. 
cf..etiam infra p. 107 n. 17. 


36 Sacraments and Society 


and as they were going into the Chienne country they were 
overtaken by the enemy. One man slipped off from his 
pony and hid in the thick bush. The enemy passed him 
and went on after the others. The man came out from his 
hiding-place and went on towards home. He thought that 
he was lost. He cried and called to all the gods in the 
heavens and to all the animal gods. Just a little before day- 
light as he was climbing a hill, he heard some one singing. 
He went on and when he had climbed the hill he heard the 
singing coming from the East. He looked and saw a Buffalo 
cow running towards him and snorting as she came. The 
man was frightened but the Buffalo said: ‘Do not be afraid. 
I was singing as I loped along over these hills; you heard 
the song, and I will teach it to you and you will start a dance 
that will be called the Big-Warrior dance.’ The Buffalo 
and the man sat down together on top of the hill and they 
looked toward the east. 

“As the sun came up the Buffalo galloped off towards 
the east, singing the same song: 


“There coming coming yonder. 

There coming, coming yonder. 

There coming, coming yonder. 

There coming, coming yonder. 

There coming, coming yonder. 

There coming, coming yonder. 

There coming, coming yonder. 

The Buffalo is coming, coming yonder. 


“The man learned many mysterious things from the 
Buffalo, and the Buffalo gave him power to travel without 
growing tired, and to capture many ponies. The man was 
told to sing the song at dawn as the Buffalo had done. The 
man returned to his home, and when the dawn came in the 
east he sang the song about the Buffalo coming with good 


The Nature of Myth 37 


message to the man. After that the man when on war-path 
always had success in capturing ponies.” *® 

The first thing that strikes us here is that we have a myth, 
the real meaning of which has been forgotten. An appended 
note says that it is intended to teach that one should always 
listen, when on the road alone, as there might be some kind 
animal that wanted to tell one some “good message,” but 
there is no suggestion of this even in the present form of 
the legend. Apparently, also, the ponies are a later addition. 
Originally the myth must have been connected with some 
rite known as the Big-Warrior Medicine, the purpose of 
which has been entirely forgotten, since it was not defined 
in the myth apart from the rite, and was lost when the rite 
disappeared. 

I think that I have made it sufficiently clear that in 
its origin myth had nothing to do with doctrine. It was 
not intended to teach anything, but, together with the rite, 
of which it formed an integral—and, except in theory, in- 
separable—part, was intended to do something. Frazer 
speaks of the combined rite and myth as a sort of mystic 
drama, of which he says, speaking, to be sure, of a particular 
myth: 

“A myth is never so graphic and precise in its details as 
when it is, so to speak, the book of the words which are 
spoken and acted by the performers of the sacred rite.” 1” 
* * * “The intention of these sacred dramas, we may be 
sure, was neither to amuse nor to instruct an idle audience, 
and as little were they designed to gratify the actors, to 
whose baser passions they gave the rein foratime. * * * 
The dramas are played, the mysteries performed, not to 
teach the spectators the doctrines of their creed, still less to 
entertain them, but for the purpose of bringing about those 


16 Dorsey, G. A., The Pawnee: Mythology (Pt. 1.), (Wash., 
D. C., 1906), pp. 337-378. 


17 Golden Bough, X. p. 105. 


38 Sacraments and Society 


natural effects which they represent in mythical disguise; in 
a word, they are magical ceremonies and their mode of 
operation is mimicry or sympathy. We shall probably not 
err in assuming that many myths, which are known only as 
myths, had once their counterpart in magic; in other words, 
that they used to be acted as means of producing in fact the 
events which they describe in figurative language.’** 

Of course, on Dr. Frazer’s theory that magic and religion 
are fundamentally incompatible, *® we should have to admit 
that all such rites as we have been considering were pure 
magic, and in the sense in which he uses the word, non-re- 
ligious, but without committing ourselves to his theory, we 
may simply summarize our discussion so far, by agreeing 
with him that the combination of rite with myth was in- 
tended for a single purpose, and that they were used simply 
and solely ‘as means of producing in fact the events which 
they described” in figurative symbols of act and spoken 
words. Our chief interest is in trying to discover how the 
use of such ceremonies could ever have arisen, and what it is 
that makes them persist, in spite of the progress of . 
civilization and the development of science, even in our own 
midst. 





18 ibid. IX., pp. 373-374. 
19 op. cit., I. pp. 224-225. 


III 
THE GENESIS OF CEREMONIES 


THE one thing which is essential to primitive society is 
ceremonial. The whole life of primitive man is so abso- 
lutely dependent upon the use of ceremonial that its in- 
evitable presence has come to be regarded as one of the 
unmistakable signs of primitivity. As far back as we can 
go in human history, we find ourselves face to face with 
well established ceremonies; and in the case of the sur- 
viving representatives of savagery and barbarism, to whom 
we might look, in this twentieth century, for some light on 
the origin of such customs, we find in every instance that 
they are attributed, by ancient tradition, to a still more an- 
cient past. For the anthropologist, ceremonial is, in the 
end, a datum. Often he can trace it through certain stages 
of its evolution, transformation or diffusion, but back of it 
he can not go. Human society seems to begin with it, and 
though civilization may, in a sense, be said to have led to 
the gradual banishment of ceremonial, one might be justi- 
fied, in the light of history, in believing that ceremonial 
will not wholly disappear so long as human society remains. 

We are wont to say that uncivilized peoples are ruled by 
custom, and while this is true, it is but a half-truth. It is 
not in the prevalence of custom as a guide to conduct that 
the greatest difference is to be found between primitive 
peoples and ourselves, for what one of us is free from the 
tyranny of custom? In discussing the “Mind of Primitive 
Man” Boas says,} among other things: “A comparison be- 
tween the modes of life of different nations, and particularly 


1 Journal of American Folk-Lore, XIV. (1901), pp. 1-11. cf. 
The Mind of Primitive Man, (N. Y., 1913), esp. chaps. 4 and 8. 


39 


40 Sacraments and Society 


of civilized man and of primitive man, makes it clear that an 
enormous number of our actions are determined entirely by 
traditional associations. When we consider, for instance, 
the whole range of our daily life, we notice how strictly we 
are dependent upon tradition that can not be accounted for 
by any logical reasoning. We eat three meals a day, and 
feel unhappy if we have to forego one of them. There is 
no physiological reason which demands three meals a day, 
and we find that many people are satisfied with two meals, 
while others enjoy four or even more. The range of animals 
and plants which we utilize for food is limited, and we 
have a decided aversion against eating dogs, or horses, or 
cats. There is certainly no objective reason for such aver- 
sion, since a great many people consider dogs and horses 
as dainties. When we consider fashions, the same becomes 
still more apparent. To appear in the fashions of our 
forefathers of two centuries ago would be entirely out of 
the question, and would expose one to ridicule. The same 
is true of table manners. To smack one’s lips is considered 
decidedly bad style, and may even incite feelings of disgust; 
while among the Indians, for instance, it would be con- 
sidered as in exceedingly bad taste not to smack one’s lips 
when one is invited to dinner, because it would suggest that 
the guest does not enjoy his dinner. The whole range of 
actions that are considered as proper and improper cannot be 
explained by any logical reason, but are almost all entirely 
due to custom; that is to say they are purely traditional.” 


After all, in some things we are not so different from 
the savages! We are still the creatures of habit, and if our 
habits are different from those of the savage, it is because of 
the different stuff out of which they are made. We never 
stop to think at all about most of the things we do, least 
of all our social customs. Why is it that a gentleman lifts 
his hat to a lady whom he knows, while an officer in uniform 


The Genesis of Ceremonies 41 


does not? Is there any other reason than mere convenience, 
why women should so often wear their hats at an in-door so- 
cial function, when men do not? And when it comes to public 
functions, why do we have parades and flag-raisings, dedi- 
cation ceremonies, such as unveilings, corner stone layings, 
launchings and the like? This matter of the mores is one 
to which, from the very nature of the case, we give very 
little thought. 

The routine of the Intichiuma ceremony among the Arunta 
of Australia and the routine of the large packing-house 
establishments of Chicago are both intended to increase the 
food supply, and yet one would have difficulty in discovering 
any resemblance between them, unless it be in the copious 
spilling of blood.? The one consists of a series of elaborate 
ceremonies, and from the other anything resembling cere- 
mony has been entirely eliminated. 

Our modern economic parlance has given us a pass-word 
and a proverb, The pass-word, which will ensure entrance 
into any commercial or industrial stronghold, and procure 
promotion for its lucky possessor, is “efficiency.” And the 
proverb, which serves as a cloak to cover many sins, is 
“Corporations have no souls.” Both of them reflect our 
modern emphasis on mechanism to the exclusion of person- 
ality. The modern workman “runs” a machine or does 
such work as a machine can not do, but he does it like a 
machine. His very motions are prescribed, the way in which 
he should lift a burden, the height and distance from him 
at which his materials should be placed, the sequence of his 
motions, all these are figured out for him, beforehand, or 
may be, if he is properly “managed.” ® Nothing could more 
accurately illustrate the change from savagery to civilization 


2Spencer and Gillen. Native Tribes of Central Australia, 

pp. 176 ff. On the use of human-blood, cf. G. B., I. p. 90 ff. 
8Taylor, F. W. The Principles of Scientific Management, 
Cvs ys. L911); 


42 Sacraments and Society 


than this contrast of “technique.” Another example of the 
same thing may be found in the difference of procedure 
necessary to win one’s way into the presence of a savage 
potentate and that of an industrial magnate. The minor 
details may be left to the imagination, but in general, that 
which would characterize the one would be totally lacking 
from the other. There would no doubt be much vexatious 
delay in both cases, and many requirements which might 
not be understood; at least their necessity would not be 
obvious at the time. In the one case, the whole procedure 
would be a matter of ceremony, and when one was finally 
ushered into the august presence, he would be received 
with haughty but magnanimous courtesy and the proffer of 
entertainment and refreshment. In the other, ceremony 
would be conspicuous by its absence, its place being taken 
by system, and if courtesy did not give place to curtness, 
the most one could expect would be a greeting somewhat 
after the manner of “Well, I have just fifteen minutes; 
what can I do for you?” 

In all primitive groups most of the government and much 
of the education is done by the use of ceremonies. We have 
seen an example of the education of the young natives of 
Australia, by means of the initiation ceremony,* and in order 
to illustrate the use of ceremony in a more evident case of 
social control, let us quote from the same authority the 
description of an execution of the death sentence. 

“When a man has been adjudged by the council to have 
killed some one by evil magic, an armed party called Pinya 
is sent out to kill him. 

“The appearance at a camp of one or more natives marked 
with a white band round the head, with the point of the 
beard tipped with human hair, and with diagonal red and 
white stripes across the breast and stomach, is the sign of 





4 supra p. 16 ff. 


The Genesis of Ceremonies 43 


the Pinya. These men do not speak, and their appearance 
is a warning to the camp to listen attentively to the questions 
they may think it necessary to put regarding the where- 
abouts of the condemned man. Knowing the discipline of 
the Pinya and its remorseless spirit, any and every question 
is answered in terror, and many a cowardly man in his fear 
accuses his friend or even his relative, and it is on this ac- 
cusation that the Pinya throw the whole of the responsibility 
of the death they inflict. When the deed is done, the Pinya 
is broken up, and each man returns to his home.”® Mr. 
Howitt goes on to describe the visit of a Pimya to avenge 
a death, which, from the description seems to have been ac- 
cidental, but which was nevertheless considered worthy of 
retributive justice. As the custom of the Dieri is that the 
penalty of death shall be inflicted, not necessarily on the 
offender, but on his eldest brother at the place where the 
offence was committed, in this instance it fell on an inno- 
cent kinsman. The leader of the Pinya of Perigundi men 
was called Mudla-kupa. When he pronounced the sentence 
of death over the offender, “an elder brother of this man 
drew Mudla-kupa to one side, saying, “Don’t seize my 
Ngatata (younger brother), nor even me, for see, there sits 
our Neyi (elder brother); seize him.’ At the same time 
he threw a clod of earth in the direction in which the man 
was. Mudla-kupa now turned to him, seized him by the hand, 
and spoke the death sentence over him, which he received 
with stoical composure. Mudla-kupa led him to one side, 
when the second man of the Pinya came up, and as Mudla- 
kupa held the man out to him as the accused, he struck him 
with a maru-wiri® and split his head open. The whole Pinya 
then fell upon him with spears and boomerangs. In order 
that they should not hear how he was being killed, the other 


5 Howitt, op. cit., pp. 326-328. 
6“A weapon shaped like a great boomerang, which is used 
with both hands like a sword.” 


44 Sacraments and Society 


men, women, and children in the camp made a great rustling 
with boughs and broken-off bushes.” 

How can it have come to pass that a few daubs of paint 
across the chest and a white band round the head could so 
fortify a small group of men that they could walk silently 
into the camp of another clan and calmly split the head of 
one of its men without resistance? Or, what is even more 
remarkable, what mysterious power forced an innocent man 
to sit calmly by and watch his own execution, so to speak, 
and his relatives to treat the whole affair like a social faux- 
pas from which attention should be directed by any means 
at hand? It is to answer questions like these that we are 
forced to consider the origin of ceremony, but since their 
history can never be traced back of some legendary past in 
which they were already established and in full control, we 
are forced to surmise their origin, on the basis of human 
psychology, a basis, it may be said, on which we can come 
much nearer to demonstration and the discovery of solid 
fact, than on the testimony of either historians or the abori- 
gines themselves. 

It is to be distinctly understood that we here launch out 
into theory, but it is not pure theory alone, but an attempt 
at the interpretation of facts which any one can verify for 
himself. We must not—in fact we need not—assume any- 
thing as being present in the “nature” of the savage that we 
are not conscious of as being also present in ourselves. Not 
that I mean to suggest that we all are savages, but only that 
we ourselves possess a native endowment of instincts and 
emotions which are the common heritage of all mankind.’ 
These represent that part of human nature which changes 
least, if at all, and so constitute the major premise of our 
theorizing. Our only other assumption,—and this consti- 

tvide Shand, A. F., The Foundations of Character, (Lond., 


1914), esp. Bk. II, Chap. 1, “Instincts and Emotions,” pp. 178- 
196. 


The Genesis of Ceremonies 45 


tutes our minor premise, if it may be so called where we do 
not employ a syllogism,—is that the ideas of primitive man 
were the product of his environment; and here again we may 
demonstrate the truth of our assumption ourselves.® 
Primitive man needed knowledge and control, and sought 
these as aids in his struggle for self-preservation. He prob- 
ably did not have any idea of law or regularity, but accepted 
the presence of things around him and the succession of day 
and night much as young children do. When anything un- 
usual or irregular happened, this attracted his attention and 
filled him with fear. Now what we popularly call fear is 
apparently made up of two elements: an instinctive reaction 
of flight and an emotion or effective “tone” accompanying 
it. When we speak of fear or try to describe it we usually 
think of the latter, but the way others discover that we are 
afraid is by the evidence of the former. We need not stop 
to discuss their possible separation in theory since in ex- 
perience they always occur together, and we may be per- 
mitted, for the purposes of our argument, to treat them both 
as innate or “given.” ® If when one is frightened—or rather 
ought to be frightened—he should suddenly dash off at top 
speed, like a base-runner in a ball game “getting down with 
his arm” as the pitcher moves, or with as little hesitation as 


8 “The difference in the mode of thought of primitive man and 
of civilized man seems to consist largely in the difference of 
character of the traditional material with which the new per- 
ception associates itself.” Boas, op. cit. p. 7. 

® The latest word from the “Behaviourist” school is “that 
all organized responses which can be called forth from both 
man and animal fall under one or the other of these heads, 
instincts (including here the simplest form of reflexes), and 
habits. * * * Since we do not admit any such distinction” 
(as that made by James between the motor response to emo- 
tions and instincts) “it follows that from our point of view both 
emotions and instincts belong in one and the same class.’”’ Wat- 
son, J. B., Behaviour (N. Y., 1914), p. 185 n.; ef. McDougal, 
W., Introduction to Social Psychology, (6th ed., Boston, 1912), 
chap. 3. 


46 Sacraments and Society 


is manifested by little chicks when, at the sight of a passing 
shadow the brood-hen utters that peculiar little gurgle which 
so impressed the mind of the Psalmist and of Christ, in all 
probability he would not be afraid at all, but would enjoy 
the exhilaration of the exercise as much as a colt frisking 
round in a pasture; and he would have as little understanding 
as to why he did it. It is just because we do not run at once, 
but hesitate about it, that we are overtaken by fear. This 
hesitation may be due to our being “paralyzed” by the fear, 
or it may be due, in part at least, to an element of curiosity 
which prompts us to “take a chance” and see what will hap- 
pen. Both fear and curiosity are common to man and the 
other animals, but while in the animals fear and curiosity 
are opposed, antagonistic and tend to be mutually exclusive, 
in man they can be, and often are combined or blended into 
one attitude. Because primitive man wanted to know, he 
bargained with fear, and because he wanted to be master 
both of himself and of his world, he dared to make an 
attempt at mastering a difficult situation, and somehow or 
other he succeeded! 

Surely it is significant that, so far as we can discover, the 
animals have no ceremonies, though we may often notice 
suggestions of such in their behaviour.*® In spite of the 
wonderful abilities displayed by some animals in learning 
to perform a definite series of acts which shall lead to a 
result which remains constant, this accomplishment seems to 
lack any element of adaptation to the end in view. It is only 
in man that we find undoubted evidence of this anticipatory 
adjustment, and the ability to accomplish this is what we 
call mind.** If, then, we find that the two possessions which 


10 Groos, K., The Play of Animals, (N. Y. 1898), refers to the 
seeming dances of birds, which he relates to courtship: pp. 109, 
268. 

11‘When the psychologist threw away the soul he com- 
promised with his conscience by setting up a ‘mind’ which was 


The Genesis of Ceremonies 47 


distinguish man from the animals—and this conclusion is 
based on the personal testimony of both—are the use of 
ceremonies and the ability to make what we call deliberate 
adaptation of means to ends, there would seem to be at least 
a reasonable probability that et is.some connection be- 
tween the two. 

Dr. Marett has a very suggestive illustration of how the 
use of symbolic substitutes, so common in all forms of magic, 
may have arisen. He calls attention to the fact that when 
a bull attempts, in a rage—which is preponderant in directing 
his interest—to gore a man, the sight of whom has provoked 
the outburst of rage, the animal will attack the man’s dis- 
carded coat in lieu of the man if he can reach the one and 
not the other.*? It is this very fact that lends the zest to the 
Spanish bull fights, and robs them of most of their danger. 
In such a case we have no means of determining whether 
the bull finds any real connection between the original cause 
of the danger and the object on which it vents itself, but 
the transfer from one to the other takes place almost auto- 
matically. “And now to pass from the case of the animal 
to that of man, in regard to whom a certain measure of 
sympathetic insight becomes possible. With a fury that well- 
nigh matches the bull’s in its narrowing effect on the con- 
sciousness, the lover, who yesterday perhaps was kissing the 
treasured glove of his mistress, to-day, being jilted, casts 
her portrait on the fire.’ +® Here we have a clear case of 
“rudimentary magic.” There may not be, in the mind of the 
lover, any intention to work harm on his fair lady, but for 
the time being he is in exactly the frame of mind which 
would lead him to a conviction that he had done so, if, in 
the next day’s paper he discovered the news that her house 


to remain always hidden and difficult of access.” Watson, op. 
Git. Dp. 20. 

12 op. cit., p. 40. 

13 ibid. 


48 Sacraments and Soctety 


had caught fire the night before, and she had perished in 
the flames. His whole attention is, for the moment, riveted 
on the “symbol” which has completely displaced the reality 
which it represents, and his action is as involuntary as if he 
were under hypnotic control. Subsequently he would no 
doubt “explain” this action, and find rational justification for 
it, but at the time there was none. 


There are other ways in which the same sort of action 
may come to expression. “You get a letter that hurts you, 
you tear it up instantly. You do this not because you think 
you are tearing up the writer, but just because you 
are hurt, and hurt nerves seek muscular discharge. You 
get a letter that heals you and you keep it, you hold it tight 
in your hand, you even, if you are a real savage, put it to 
your lips, simply because you act on the instinct to clutch 
what is life to you.” * 


“Man, say the wise Upanishads, is altogether desire 
(kéma) ; as is his desire so is his insight (kratw), as is his 
insight so is his deed (karma.) This oneness of desire and 
deed, which the Indian mystic emphasizes, comes out very 
clearly in the simplest forms of magic when the magical act 
is only an uttered desire. You are becalmed, you can do 
nothing, think of nothing but the wind that will not come, 
The thought of it possesses you, obsesses you, till the ten- 
sion of your nerves is too much, your longing will out; the 
wind will not whistle for you, you whistle for the wind. 
Your first whistle is sheer, incarnate longing, but, as it came 
after long waiting, perhaps the wind really does rise. Next 
time the nerve paths are ready prepared,’® a habit is set up, 


14 Themis, p. 83. 


15 “Tt is assumed by a good many writers, * * * that there 
is an ‘overflow’ or ‘diffusion phenomenon’ and this diffusion or 
overflow can spread without having to pass through preformed 
neural channels. In this accidental connections are said to be 


The Genesis of Ceremonies 49 


a private, it may be public, ritual is inaugurated.” ?® What- 
ever may have been the original cause of the action, whether 
it be an instinctive expression of emotion, such as fear or 
anger, or the overt embodiment of a strong desire, the point 
which I wish to emphasize is that the expression is a per- 
fectly natural and spontaneous one, and we are at once on 
the road toward the establishment of a habit. It is a well 
established fact of neural physiology that once a thing has 
been done, it comes easier to the individual to repeat the same 
process than to try some new way of doing it. It may take 
a great many trials to establish this particular method, to 
the exlusion of all others, but the first method to bring about 
the desired result has the best chance of winning in the end. 

So long as we are dealing with individuals alone it is 
merely a question of the primary instinctive reactions, or 
tendencies to respond to certain external stimuli, and the 
possibility of the successful response being repeated often 
enough to gradually exclude all other instinctive reactions 
to the same stimulus, which can influence the establishment 
of a habit.17 But since an “individual” is a pure abstraction, 
and we must consider the influence upon him of the folk 
among whom he lives, it is evident that we must consider the 
possibility of the development of habits or their modification 
by social influence. 

Chickens are born with the instinct to peck, and at first 
will peck at anything, but the rapidity with which the habit 


made and bonds or associations to be established. But we have 
tried to point out in several places that the nervous system is 
not built to permit such functions. There is no formation of 
new pathways. (It is quite probable that the difficulty here is 
one mainly of terminology.)” Watson, op. cit., p. 259. 

16 Themis, p. 83. 

17 The recency of the successful attempt, when the same sit- 
uation arises again, with the possibility of what we call 
“memory” also has its effect, but this is less potent. cf. Watson, 
op. cit., pp. 262 ff.; Angell Psychology, (4th ed. N. Y., 1908), 
pp. 237 ff. 


50 Sacraments and Society 


develops is greatly increased by the influence of the brood 
hen’s presence, An English sparrow, reared in the company 
of canaries developed, in one instance at least, the ability to 
reproduce some of the canaries’ notes, while a red-wing 
blackbird that had the privilege of living in a cosmopotitan 
aviary cultivated the crow of a bantam rooster and made 
it the burden of his song for two whole months.** Now it is 
easy to see how a kind of social sanction might soon lend to 
an individual's habit the prestige of a social convention. In- 
dividual expression under social control leads to convention. 
When you have been fishing, have you ever seen anyone 
spit on his bait? If so were you enough of a savage to try 
it yourself? You would probably not attribute the next 
catch that you made to this expedient, but in an ignorant 
community the testimony of one individual to the positive 
value of such an act might easily lead to a sort of fisherman’s 
magic. And while we are speaking of fishing, have you never 
waded silently along a country trout brook, because, for- 
sooth, the trout would not bite if you spoke? I have; and 
an utterly illogical proceeding it was, too, but we caught the 
trout! 

Primitive peoples know nothing of experimentation, but 
they put great faith in experience—anyone’s and everyone’s 
experience. The only instruction that the child among the 
uncivilized receives is folk-lore and tradition, which are 
the accumulated experience of the past. We have already 
called attention to the great difference between our traditions, 
which embody all the lore of the ancient past—mingled with 
the scientific knowledge of the last few centuries, and the 
traditions of the savage. But we need to emphasize this again 
for none of us sufficiently realizes, in our vaunted superiority 
to the savage, how much richer is our inheritance than his, 
and of its riches how large a part we owe to him! He, like 





18 Watson, op. cit., p. 143. 


— 


The Genesis of Ceremonies 51 


us, assumes as true the traditions of the past, but because his 
traditions are different from ours, because any new experi- 
ence brings with it an entirely different train of associations, 
his conclusions can not help being different, and the explan- 
ations which he accepts often seem to us ridiculous.*? We may 
assume, then, that somehow, on the basis of the natural 
reactions which we have described, an expedient has been 
hit upon by an individual under the stress of perplexity, and 
that this expedient has removed his fear and tided him over 
the danger, or has appeared to him to have been a factor in 
the supplying of his need. What actually happens is that 
the particular expedient will have so dominated his conscious- 
ness at the time of suspense and emotional stress that it will 
have become inseparably associated *° with the final outcome. 
As a result of this association, the expedient, as a whole, or 
some particular element of it, such as a particular action or 
' some specific thing, will assume two important characteristics, 
one emotional, one practical. Since we are going back, in 
imagination, to the genesis of ceremonial, the probability is 
that the supposed problem proceeded out of one of the most 
primary needs, 7. e. was related to the food or sex instinct, 
and was necessarily of great practical importance. Hence 
this discovery, because it helped to supply this practical need, 
will now assume a great practical value. Should the same 


19On this point cf. again Boas’ paper, already referred to; 
also W. I. Thomas, “The Mind of Woman and the Lower Races,” 
in Sex and Society (Chicago, 1913), pp. 251 ff; John Dewey, 
“Interpretation of Savage Mind” in Psychological Review, IX. 
(1902), pp. 217 ff. 


20 Association of ideas is always subsequent to association in 
experience or conduct. It does not account for our thinking 
merely to refer it to association, for the association itself must 
have a source and meaning. cf. Marett, op. cit., p. 83; Boas, 
Mind of Prim. Man, pp. 237 ff.; on the physiological basis of 
association vide James, Principles of Psychology, (N. Y., 1899), 
I, 550 ff. 


52 Sacraments and Soctety 


need arise again, the probability is that the attempt will be 
made to supply it again in the same way. But even should 
a similar problem never again present itself, there will be an 
emotional element in the memory of the experience which 
will impart to the expedient a certain value. Either of these 
would be a firm foundation for a traditional employment of 
this particular procedure under certain circumstances. The 
more often any act is repeated the more firmly it becomes 
established, and the more nearly habitual it becomes, the 
less deliberate and conscious it will be. But with this de- 
crease of conscious accompaniment comes a decided increase 
in the emotional reaction which will result if it be omitted. 
Not to have done it will produce a consciousness of some- 
thing being wrong, of some shortcoming; a feling of disquiet 
and foreboding. If you have ever left out your tooth-brush 
when packing for a journey, without knowing that you had 
done so, you will appreciate this feeling. Whether this par- 
ticular reaction to an actual need, which we assume has 
occurred fortuitously, will be repeated often enough to de- 
velop into a habit or not, there will at least be a tendency, as 
a result of its having been once performed, to repeat it if 
occasion demands; and if it thus becomes established as a 
habit, with the more or less unconscious, un-rational and 
automatic character of habits, its subsequent omission, either 
by chance or deliberately, will cause an emotional reaction or 
sense of “wrong doing” which must certainly provoke the 
suspicion that such omission may be followed by some un- 
toward event, and the establishment of this particular act 
as a ceremony incumbent on everyone. 

It is just here that social influences take a hand in the 
making of a ceremonial, and once the necessary “social sanc- 
tion” is procured, the ceremony is established. It does not 
seem to grow, but to “appear” full fledged and in a position 
of social control. Nothing can thus become established as 
a ceremony, which is not in accord with those customs and 


The Genesis of Ceremonies 53 


traditions which are already established, and this often leads 
to the most peculiar traditions and aetiological myths which 
accompany the fusion of partially conflicting cult practices 
and ceremonies. We are here considering, however, only 
the possibility of some particular practice, which has sprung 
up very naturally from the reaction of some individual or 
group of persons to a particular problem of conduct, sub- 
sequently becoming established as a “ceremony” that is 
generally recognized as such and is universally employed 
within the social group as a method of accomplishing the 
desired result. All that is necessary to bring about this re- 
sult, is for the group sentiment to fasten upon it and compel 
its observance. 

A ceremony is a mysterious thing. It “grips” you. A 
few raps of the chairman’s gavel transform a medley of con- 
versation into an impressive silence, the wig and gown of 
the judge and the “hear ye! hear ye!” of the court crier 
make the solemnity of the court, and the lights and incense 
of religious ceremonial leave an odor which clings to a 
Catholic place of worship and impresses you with a sense 
of its peculiarly religious atmosphere, the minute you step 
inside its doors. 

A ceremony is always a social thing, for it is a method 
that persons have of dealing with persons or with things—as 
we might call them—which are nevertheless treated as per- 
sons. It is not the dead and mechanical thing that it is some- 
times supposed to be, but is instinct with life, and treats all 
that take part in it or come within the field of its influence 
as though they were animated by the same spirit. Ceremony 
is, furthermore, socialized habit. It grows out of a common 
agreement in some particular purpose or desire, and consti- 
tutes a method of accomplishing something in which all the 
participants have a common interest. It is the expression 
of one idea and springs naturally out of the common life of 
a group of persons who make up some sort of social unit. 


‘ 
IV 
THE CHARACTER OF MAGIC 


Most people would probably agree with Dr. Frazer in 
considering magic and religion fundamentally opposed to 
each other, and yet, if they could tell you just why they 
thought so, there would most certainly be a wide divergence 
in their reasons. One cause of this would be a rather hazy 
idea as to what magic is. In this day and generation we have 
almost lost sight of it, but in a general way we may under- 
stand it to mean the use of some mysterious implements, 
gestures and formulae’ to bring about a desired result, no 
matter what this may be. Now this is just the sort of thing 
that we have been describing numerous examples of, and 
no doubt the question has more than once arisen in the mind 
of the reader, whether such practices could be regarded as 
in any sense religious. Dr. Frazer thinks not, and therefore 
concludes that there must have been a time during which man- 
kind resorted to this sort of magical practice to accomplish 
a much desired control of his environment, and only sub- 
sequently, when he began to discover the futility of it, did 
he turn from magic to religion. Whether we shall eventually 
agree in this opinion or not, it is essential that we should 
realize that primitive man seems everywhere to have begun 
with the use of certain ceremonies by which he believed he 
could control the sources of life and the processes of nature, 
and it is this that is usually called magic. 


1 It seems fairly well established that the origin of the familiar 
expression “hocus pocus” is to be found in the “Hoc est Corpus 
meum” of the Latin Canon of the Mass. 

2o0p. cit., I. pp. 233-238. 


54 


The Character of Magic 55 


Out of all the examples that might be chosen to give us 
an idea of the motive and general procedure of such cere- 
monies, perhaps none is better than the producing of rain, 
since today, though there are still many Christian people 
who earnestly pray for rain in times of drought, they are 
sometimes thought to be “over superstitious” by their more 
weak-hearted neighbors. The following description of the 
rain making ceremonies of the Dieri tribe of Central Aus- 
tralia, is given by Howitt, on the authority of Mr. Gason, 
who had witnessed them many times.® 


“When the great council has determined that such a cere- 
mony is to be held, women, accompanied by their Pirraurus * 
are sent off to the various subdivisions of the tribe, to sum- 
mon the people to attend at some appointed place. When the 
tribe is gathered together, they dig a hole about two feet 
deep, twelve long, and from eight to ten feet wide. Over 
this they build a net of logs with the interstices filled in with 
slighter logs, the building being conical in form and covered 
with boughs. This hut is only sufficiently large to contain 
the old men, the younger ones being seated at the entrance 
or outside. This being completed, the women are called 
together to look at the hut, which they approach from the 
rear, and then separating, some go one way and some the 
other round the building, until they reach the entrance, each 
one looking inside without speaking. They then return to 
their camp, about five hundred yards distant. 

Two Kunkis,> who are supposed to have received an in- 


3 Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia. (London, 
1904), p. 395-396. cf. Gason, S. “Manners and Customs of the 
Dieyerie Tribe,” in Woods, J. D., Editor, Native Tribes of South 
Australia, (Adelaide, 1879), and Frazer, op. cit., I. 255 ff., for 
summary. 


4%, €., a wife’s sister or a husband’s brother; a kind of “second- 
ary” wife or husband. 


5 Medicine-men., 


56 Sacraments and Society 


spiration from the rain-making Mura-muras, ° are selected: to 
have their arms lanced. These are tightly bound near the 
shoulders to prevent a too profuse effusion of blood. This 
being done, all the old men huddle together in the hut, and 
the principal Kunki of the tribe bleeds each of the men inside 
the arm below the elbow with a sharp piece of flint. The 
blood is made to flow on the men sitting round, during which 
the two Kunkis throw handfuls of down into the air, some of 
which becomes attached to the blood on the man, while some 
still floats about. The blood is to symbolize the rain, and 
the down the clouds. Two large stones are placed in the 
center of the hut, representing gathering clouds presaging 
rain. The women are now called to visit the hut again, and 
after having looked in and seen the inmates, they return to 
their camp. 

“The main part of the rain-making ceremony being now 
concluded, the men who were bled carry away the two stones 
and place them as high as possible in the branches of the 
largest tree about. In the meantime the other men gather 
gypsum, pound it fine and throw it into a water-hole. The 
Mura-mura is supposed to see this, and thereupon to cause 
the clouds to appear in the sky. Should no clouds appear 
as soon as expected, the explanation given is that the Mura- 
mura is angry with them; and should there be no rain for 
weeks or months after the rain-making ceremony, they sup- 
pose that some other tribe has stopped their power. 

“After the ceremony, the hut is thrown down by the men, 
old and young butting at it with their heads. The heavier 
logs which withstand this are pulled down by dragging at 
the bottom end. The piercing the hut with their heads sym- 
bolizes the piercing of the clouds, and the fall of the hut 
symbolizes that of the rain.” While this is almost pure 
magic, there is a suggestion of that “propitiation or concilia- 


6 Their legendary ancestors. 


The Character of Magic 57 


tion of powers superior to man which are believed to direct 
and control the course of nature and of human life” ™ which 
Dr. Frazer considers the essential thing in religion, and he 
would probably class it as an instance of the “fusion or con- 
fusion” of the two. He gives another example of a similar 
ceremony from Queensland, in which a “rain-stick” takes a. 
prominent part, and which in no way suggests the interven- 
tion of a supernatural being. “About noon the men who are 
to take part in it repair to a lonely pool, into which one of 
them dives and fixes a hollow log vertically inthe mud. Then 
they all go into the water, and, forming a rough circle around 
the man in the middle, who holds the rain-stick aloft, they 
begin stamping with their feet as well as they can, and 
splashing the water with their hands from all sides on the 
rain-stick, The stamping, which is accompanied by singing, 
is sometimes a matter of difficulty, since the water may be 
four feet deep or more. When the singing is over, the man 
in the middle dives out of sight and attaches the rain-stick 
to the hollow log under water. Then coming to the surface, 
he quickly climbs on to the bank and spits out on dry land 
the water which he imbibed in diving. * * * No woman may 
set eyes on the rain-stick or witness the ceremony of its sub- 
mergence; but the wife of the chief rain-maker is privileged 
to take part in the subsequent rite of scratching herself with 
a twig. When the rain does come, the rain-stick is taken out 
of the water; it has done its work.” ® By way of contrast, 
and to show that we have not, even today, quite outgrown 
magic—should anyone think that we have—consider the 
following “present day ceremony” from the same authority :?° 
“In time of drought the Servians strip a girl to her skin and 


7 See the definition of religion in G. B., I. p. 222, where it is 
attributed to Cicero, De Inventione, ii. 161. 

8ef. G. B., I. p. 227. 

9o0p. cit., I. p. 254-255. 

10 ibid., p. 2738. 


58 Sacraments and Society 


clothe her from head to foot in grass, herbs, and flowers, 
even her face being hidden behind a veil of living green. 

“Thus disguised she is called Dodola, and goes through the 
village with a troop of girls. They stop before every house; 
the Dodola keeps turning herself round and dancing, while 
the other girls form a ring about her singing one of the 
Dodola songs, and the housewife pours a pail of water over 
her. One of the songs they sing runs thus :— 


We go through the village; 

The clouds go through the sky; 
We go faster, 

Faster go the clouds; 

They have overtaken us, 

And wetted the corn and the vine.” 


It is perhaps well for the besoused maiden that such charms 
are not resorted to except in that season of the year when 
the desired result is considered to be possible, or in fact would 
be a normal occurrence. 

Turning now to another side of magic, let us notice an 
instructive example of that sort of magic which is both 
private, as contrasted with social, and anti-social in that it 
seeks another’s injury. This ceremony is called “pointing 
with the bone” and is thus described.?2 “In North Australia 
any one can ‘sing magic’ even lubras (women), but of course 
the wise old magic men do it best. It never fails with them, 


11cf, Haddon, A. C., Magic and Fetishism, (Chicago, n. d.) 
p. 62. He says “I found that the impossible was never attempted. 
A rain charm would not be made when there was no expectation 
of rain coming, or a south-east wind be raised during the wrong 
season,” 

12apud Haddon, op. cit., p. 49-50, where it is abridged from 
Gunn, Jeannie, The Little Black Princess; a True Tale of Life in 
the Never-Never Land, (London, 1905), p. 98. This ceremony is 
also described in Howitt, op. cit., p. 359 ff. 


The Character of Magic 59 


particularly if they ‘sing’ and point one of the special ‘death- 
bones’ or ‘sacred stones’ of the tribe. Generally a black 
fellow goes away quite by himself when he is ‘singing magic’ 
but very occasionally a few men join together, as they did 
in the case of “Goggle Eye.’ When enough magic has been 
‘sung’ into the bone, it is taken away to the camp, and very 
secretly pointed at the unconscious victim. The magic spirit 
of the bone runs into the man who is pointed at, and gradu- 
ally kills him. Of course the man who has been ‘sung’ must 
be told somehow, or he will not get a fright and die. There 
are many ways of managing this; one very good way is to 
put the bone where he will be sure to find it, in his dilly-bag, 
or near his fire, or through the handle of his spear; but the 
man who leaves the bone about must, of course, be very 
careful to destroy his own tracks.1* ‘Goggle-Eye,’ after he 
had found the bones lying about, knew exactly what was 
going to happen to him, and of course it did. His throat 
got very sore, and he grew so thin and weak that he could 
hardly stand. A man can be cured by magic men charming 
the ‘bone’ away again; but ‘Goggle-Eye’ was old, and, what 
was worse, he was getting very cross, and too fond of order- 
ing people about, so the black fellows thought it would be 
the best plan not to cure him, and a few more sneaked away 
into the bush and ‘sang’ some more bones, and pointed them 
at him to make quite sure about his dying. Poor old 
“Google-Eye’ suffered dreadfully; no native would help him 
except his blood-brother, because they were afraid of the 
curse coming to them. Some said they would like to help, 
but that if they made ‘Goggle-Eye’s’ fire for him, their own 
would never burn again. Nobody could even carry his food 
to him. Soon after, at ‘fowl-sing-out,’ or cock-crow, he 
died.” 





18 This is because he might himself be killed by putting 
“medicine” in his foot-prints. cf. G. B. I. p. 207-212. 


60 Sacraments and Society 


Innumerable examples of these and other kinds of magic 
rites could be given, but I must resist the temptation to do 
so, and will add but one more, which will illustrate another 
side of magical practice, in the way of a personal “charm” 
as we might call it. This instance is found among the tra- 
ditions of the Cherokee Indians.** In order to fortify him- 
self against the rigors of the cold, before starting on a 
journey the Cherokee rubs his feet with ashes from his fire, 
and then sings four verses, Each of these verses consists of 
the declaration that he becomes, in reality a wolf, a deer, a 
fox and an oppossum, and after each he imitates in voice 
and gesture the particular animal which he at the moment 
is. In this way he procures for his own feet that immunity 
from frost-bite which these animals apparently possess. 


Since it is not an easy matter to define magic, I have tried 
to illustrate it, and I believe that all its salient features are 
evident in the few examples here given. Fundamentally and 
primarily it is a means to a coercive sort of control, or “the 
exertion of an imperative will,” as it has been called.1®> This 
it accomplishes by the use of certain definite and fixed ritual 
acts and verbal formulae, nothing of which may be omitted. 
Normally it requires the use of both material objects and 
spoken words, and where the “object” or victim is a person, 
some knowledge on his part, that the performance has taken 
place is essential to its success. It seems almost a truism, 
but nevertheless the fact must be emphasized that absolute 
confidence in the efficacy of the means chosen is an indis- 
pensable requisite, particularly on the part of a personal 
victim. The one outstanding thing about magic is that it is 


14 Mooney, J., “Myths of the Cherokee,’ Bureau of American 
Ethnology, Report XIX. (Wash., D. C., 1900), Pt. I. p. 266. 

15 Marett, Threshhold of Religion, 2d. ed., p. 69. I am indebted 
to Dr. Marett for my conviction that magic was not a rudimentary 
natural science. This he shows here, in “From Spell to Prayer,” 
@ criticism of Frazer’s view. 


The Character of Magic 61 


a way of getting things done, and if it is first-class magic it 
always “works.” What it really resolves itself into is a 
method of pre-enacting the thing before it comes off,'® and 
it is important to remember that though the final result of 
the magic rite is in this way determined by the rite itself, 
you can never be quite certain that the desired result will 
follow, till it does. The “‘rainstick” was not taken from the 
water hole till after the rain had come, and then there could 
be no question that it had done its work! If, for any un- 
toward circumstance, the desired result does not follow, it 
is quite remarkable that, contrary to what we might expect, 
the principle of magic does not fall into disrepute, there is 
no loss of confidence in the technique as such, but the failure 
is attributed to one of two causes: either there has been some 
lack in the perfection of the rite, some undiscovered hind- 
rance, or the reason is to be found in some contrary magic 
or counter spell. We found a suggestion of this in the ac- 
count of the rain-making ceremony of the Dieri.’” 

There are two elements in this “doing” of magic, the ex- 
pression of the operator’s will in the present symbolism, and 
the realization of the same will in the ultimate result. Be- 
tween these two and linking them into a potent whole lies 
the wonderful and mysterious power which lends to magic 


16 “First and foremost magic is SowuUEVOV: a thing predone. 
The rain-maker jingles his rattle and shakes his water-cart, he 
does something. Language here speaks clearly enough. The 
Latin factura is magical ‘making’, witchcraft; the Sanskrit krtya 
is doing and magic; the Greek éovyateotar is used of ritual op- 
erations of a magical character. The German zauber is connected 
with the O. H. G. zowwan, Gothic tanyan, to do. The doing is 
sometimes that form of doing which we call speaking; vOns the 
Greek enchanter, is but a specialized howler; the Hebrew dabar 
does not distinguish between word and deed. Of whatever kind 
the action, the essence of magic is 

T’ll do, 11 do, Tl do.” (Themis, p. 32) 

17 supra p. 56. 


62 Sacraments and Society 


its terror. It is about this mysterious “something” in magic 
that the scholars are still disputing, but we need not tarry 
over their arguments, since for our purpose it does not mat- 
ter what the savages or the ancients thought it was—if this 
can ever be settled—provided only that we appreciate that it 
was real, not simply imaginary. And if you do not believe 
this, stand at a grade crossing on some rail-road, when a 
train is approaching and wave a piece of red cloth about a 
yard square (I am not certain as to the precise size, but it 
must be red) frantically back and forth across the track and 
see what happens! Or you might try crying just one magic 
word, shrilly and at the top of your voice, in a crowded 
theatre: FIRE!!! This is said always to produce the same 
effect, but I can not vouch for it, as I have never tried it. 
This mystic power was set loose, as it were, and directed 
on its way by the magic rite combined with the “spell,” and 
if something did not intervene between this “spiritual pro- 
jectile’’?® and its target, it was bound to hit. There was al- 
ways, however, an element of suspense, represented by that 
pregnant if, which lifted the whole proceeding out of the 
natural and commonplace and exalted it into a thing of 
foreboding and terror. Magic was essentially a means of 
gaining control, of obtaining power and exerting it for the 
furtherance of one’s own ends, and yet it is not at all cer- 
tain that it was in any sense a mechanical process. It may 
look so to us, because we are familiar with mechanism, an 
inert, inanimate thing which has to be put to work, but is 
almost wholly self-directed and under unvarying conditions, 
will always produce the same results. But even the thought 
of mechanism, as thus defined, shows how far its action 
differs from the action of magic. There is an unquestionable 
attitude of deliberate control, but it seems to be commen- 





18 The term is Marett’s; vide op. cit., p. 54. My indebtedness 
to Dr. Marett for this and the psychological analysis of magic is 
gratefully acknowledged. 


The Character of Magic 63 


surate with a sense of the mysteriously occult and problem- 
atical rather than with a conviction of natural law or 
mechanical uniformity which must govern the result. And it 
does not require a disregard of another will in the “object” 
but only the coercion of this will. Whether or not primitive 
man conceived of the forces of nature as “personal,” or 
directed by anything like “will,” there can be no doubt that 
when he used a magic rite to win the love of a maiden or 
contrive the death of an enemy he must have admitted to 
them just as much of a will as he himself had. The impor- 
tant point is to realize that by the use of his magic he was 
able—generally—to thwart it. No doubt old “Goggle-Eye” 
had no particular desire to die, but like the Scotchman’s wife, 
who being a good Calvinist, found consolation in the doc- 
trine of God’s immutable decrees, even on her deathbed, had 
to be “reconciled.” In each case it was a firm conviction 
that the end was inevitable, which made the reconciliation 
possible, but the human will was not ignored, nor was it 
destroyed, it acquiesced. 

I have searched in vain for a clear and comprehensive 
definition of magic’® and in view of the reticence of the 


19 The nearest to a concise definition that I have found, is that 
of Hewett (Amer. Anthropologist, New Series, IV. p. 37): “an 
imitative representation or dramatization, so to speak, of the 
operations of the mystic potence subsumed in the environing 
bodies.” 

For a resume of the various theories of magic, vide Hartland, 
E. S., Ritual and Belief, (N. Y., 1914), pp. 68ff. 

The origin of magic is attributed by Pliny (Nat. Hist. XXX. 
7) to Persia, meaning by this the Magi. 

Even in the last edition of the Golden Bough, the first two 
volumes of which treat of “The Magic Art” Dr. Frazer has no 
definition, in the inclusive sense. He says: “In short, magic is 
a spurious system of natural law as well as a fallacious guide 
of conduct; it is a false science as well as an abortive ari, * * * 
It may be called Theoretical Magic; * * * (or) it may be 
called Practical Magic. At the same time it is to be borne in 


64 Sacraments and Society 


authorities on the subject, hesitate to frame one of my own. 
But I may venture to sum up the foregoing discussion by 


mind that the primitive magician knows magic only on its 
practical side; he never analyzes the mental processes * * #* 
reflects on the abstract principles involved in his actions. 
* * * to him magic is always an art, never a science; the very 
idea of science is lacking in his undeveloped mind. It is for the 
philosophic student to trace the train of thought * * * to dis- 
engage the abstract thought * * * in short to discern the 
‘spurious science behind the bastard art.” (op. cit., I. p. 53). The 
intellectualistic point of view here is patent. Marett says: 
“Even as regards the use of the term ‘magic,’ which a student 
of rudimentary religion is bound to define somewhat sharply, 
since it gives him his natural counterfoil, I have tried to allow 
for the popular use of the word, which is liberal to the point of 
laxity. Hence in certain contexts I may have failed to give it 
the meaning I would prefer it to bear, namely, that of, not the 
impersonal, but the bad kind of supernaturalism; the impersonal 
and the bad kinds by no means always coinciding, if my theory 
of the possibility of a pre-animistic, or, as others would say, 
‘dynamistic,’ type of religion be correct.” (op. cit., p. Xxx.) 

Ames (Psychology of Religious Experience, Boston, 1910, p. 79) 
says: “Instead of attempting to define magic it is more profitable 
to indicate some things designated by it without insisting that 
they exhaust its possible meanings.” 

Prof. Ames finds the distinction between magic and religion in 
the social character of the latter: “The religious ceremonials, 
requiring, as they do, the codperation of the group, may be re- 
garded as collective magic; while those practices which are com- 
monly designated magic may be distinguished as individual 
magic.” (ibid.) Somewhat similar is the view of Doutté (Magie 
et Religion, Alger, 1909, p. 338): “Autrement dit, le miracle est 
une sorcellerie légitime et la sorcellerie est une miracle defendu.” 
cf. “mais nous estimons que la magie envellopait les duex 4 I’ 
origine: car au commencement la religion, comme la sorcellerie, 
était une magie.” (ibid. p. 341.) 

We fail to realize, I think, how much we owe to the Primitive 
conception of magic. Rivers, (The Todas, Lond. 1906, p. 271) 
says that while the Todas use the same formula to cure both 
“natural” ills and those supposed to be due to magic, they have 
reached that stage of advancement where “we seem to have a 


The Character of Magic 65 


saying that so far as I understand it, magic appears to be 
the deliberate use of a traditional rite for the purpose of 
mysteriously enforcing the will of the operator upon the 
“object.” As we have already pointed out, the difficulty 
which such a statement leaves us to face is that of dis- 
tinguishing magic from religion, and great as this difficulty 
is, even on Frazer’s theory, we must face it. Frazer is 
forced to admit that the “antagonism”? between magic and 
religion, which he considers fundamental, did not appear till 
“comparatively late in the history of religion,’ °° and what 
is even more surprising, in spite of this antagonism the 
confusion of the two survives even in our own day, and 
among peoples “of higher culture.” ?* To this question of 
the difference between religion and magic we must now de- 
vote our attention, 


clear indication of the differentiation between magic and medi- 
cine.” The same separation is in its inception among the Malay 
also. (Skeat, W. W., Malay Magic, Lond. 1900, p. 56 n. 1.) The 
relation of the magician and medicine-man is discussed by Prof. 
Thomas, who finds in him the beginning of the “professional 
occupations.” (vide Source Book for Social Origins, Chicago, 
1912, pp. 281 ff; also the same article in Decennial Publications, 
Univ. Chic., Ist Series, iv., 241-256.) 

But it is not only medicine and the professional occupations 
which may be found in their incipiency in magic; the conception 
of justifiable homicide, so fundamental in all moral codes appears 
to come directly out of the belief in the mystical potency of blood 
to impart impurity and contamination. (cf. Farnell, Evolu. of 
Relig., N. Y., 1905, pp. 139-152; Hewett, J. W., in Trans. Amer. 
Philolog. Ass’n, vol. 41 (1910), pp. 99-114.) 

Moreover, the earliest signs of graphic art which we know, are 
the drawings of the Cave Man, and these are now believed to 
have been magical in their purpose. (Reinach, Cults, Myths and 
Religions, Lond. 1912, pp. 124-237; Hirn, Y., The Origins of Art, 
N. Y., 1900, pp. 257 ff., quoted in “Source Book” wut supra, pp. 
626 ff.) 

204. B., I. 226. 


2110id, po. 227 ff. 


V 


PRIMITIVE RELIGION 


ANTHROPOLOGISTS find it difficult, in many cases, to dis- 
tinguish between magical rites and religious rites, between 
magicians and priests. Primitive man does almost every- 
thing by the use of rites, and the rite produces the desired 
effect, be it rain or victory, an increase in the food supply 
or the control of the seasons. Whatever explanation he may 
have himself given of the process by which these results 
were brought about, does not directly concern their prac- 
tical value. Results were what he wanted and it was by the 
constant use of rites that he got them. If there is any real 
difference between a magic rite and a rite that may properly 
be called religious, we must seek for it in the difference of 
attitude which the two reflect, rather than in any merely 
external differences in the rites themselves. Of course there 
may be striking changes in the external features of a rite, 
but we may not assume that therefore, of necessity, the 
attitude of mind in which it is employed must have changed, 
unless this very change is apparent in the rite itself. There 
is a very slight but a very important distinction here. To be 
of significance, a change in the rite must represent a change 
in its meaning, and therefore we may say that the importance 
lies not in the details of the outward ceremony, as such, but 
in the changed attitude which they express. 

What I mean by “attitude” may be illustrated from the 
behavior of two dogs meeting as strangers. One may growl 
and raise the hair along his back into a bristling ridge, and 
the other respond in kind, or perhaps show its teeth and 
tuck its tail between its legs. No explanation of the import 


66 


Primitive Religion 67 


of these gestures is necessary, to us or to the dogs. On the 
other hand one of the dogs may wag its tail, though the 
ridge of its back be bristling, while the other crouches with 
its head close to the ground in the quivering suspense which 
presages a playful spring. In the two instances there are 
various ways of expressing two opposing attitudes, and in 
each case the gestures show an adaptation to what may be 
expected to be the probable action on the part of the other. 
An attitude represents possible activity, and where another’s 
action enters into the field of consciousness, it represents 
also adjustment to the expected action of this other. Modern 
psychology attempts to discover the subjective experience 
of an individual, not from the declared opinions of the in- 
dividual himself or his own explanation of his action, but 
from the qualities ascribed by him to the corresponding 
object, or in other words its anticipated or assumed attitude, 
if the “object” be capable of any reaction in conduct. While, 
therefore, we may not hope to discover with any certainty 
the explanations which primitive people gave of their rites, 
we have a very definite interest in attempting to discover 
from these rites themselves the kind of “object” they 
thought themselves to be dealing with, for this will determine 
our view of their own attitudes in using them. 

Having directed our attention to this particular feature 
of mystic rites of all kinds, let us now look at a few ex- 
amples, which though not in any external elements materi- 
ally different from those we have already noticed, neverthe- 
less reveal] just this element of different attitude. 

“In the West African town of Framin, while the Ashantee 
war was raging some years ago, Mr. Fitzgerald Marriott 
saw a dance performed by women whose husbands had gone 
as carriers to the war. They were painted white and wore 
nothing but a short petticoat. At their head was a shrivelled 


1I do not here assume conscious adaptation, which would neces- 
sitate memory and purpose, but merely instinctive reaction. 


68 Sacraments and Soctety 


old sorceress in a very short white petticoat, her black hair 
arranged in a sort of long projecting horn, and her black 
face, breasts, arms, and legs profusely adorned with white 
circles and crescents. All carried long white brushes made 
of buffalo or horse tails, and as they danced they sang, “Our 
husbands have gone to Ashanteeland; may they sweep their 
enemies off the face of the earth!’? Here we have all the 
characteristics of pure magic, the ceremonial performance 
with its varied expression in the “spell” constituting a true 
rite, and the evident intention of the whole, as expressed 
in the imperative—for such it seems to be, its spirit being 
equivalent to “Let them conquer !’’—being to contrive the 
overthrow of the enemy. 

“In the Kei Islands, when the warriors have departed, the 
women return indoors and bring out certain baskets contain- 
ing fruits and stones. These fruits and stones they anoint 
and place on a board, murmuring as they do so, ‘O Lord 
sun, moon, let the bullets rebound from our husbands, 
brothers, betrothed, and other relations, just as the raindrops 
rebound from these objects which are smeared with oil.’ As 
soon as the first shot is heard, the baskets are put aside, 
and the women, seizing their fans, rush out of the houses. 
Then, waving their fans in the direction of the enemy, they 
run through the village, while they sing, ‘O golden fans! 
let our bullets hit, and those of the enemies miss.’’? It must 
be evident to anyone that here there is a different attitude 
toward the “object.” The imperative has passed into the 
optative,* the command into what appears to be of the nature 
of a supplication. 


2Frazer, G. B., I. p. 1382. 

3ibid., p. 1380. 

4'This phrase is borrowed from Marett, as is this contrast of 
examples, which he suggested, op. cit., pp. 55, 63-67. I add two 
other illustrations of my own choosing, also culled from the 
Golden Bough. 


Primitive Religion 69 


“Tn the Babar Archipelago, when a woman desires to have 
a child, she invites a man who is himself the father of a 
large family to pray on her behalf to Upulero, the spirit of 
the sun. A doll is made of red cotton, which the woman 
clasps in her arms as if she would suckle it. Then the 
father of many children takes a fowl and holds it by the 
legs to the woman’s head, saying, “O Upulero, make use of 
the fowl; let fall, let descend a child, I beseech you, I entreat 
you, let a child fall and descend into my hands and onto my 
lap.” Then he asks the woman, ‘Has the child come?’ and 
she answers, ‘Yes, it is sucking already.’ After that the man 
holds the fowl on the husband’s head, and mumbles some 
form of words. Lastly, the bird is killed and laid, together 
with some betel, on the domestic place of sacrifice.’ > Dr. 
Frazer thinks that “magic is here blent with and reinforced 
by religion.” Not so in the following case, however: “In 
Saibai, one of the islands in Torres Straits, a similar custom 
of purely magical character is observed, without any re- 
ligious alloy.” (The words are Frazer’s.) ‘Here, when a 
woman is pregnant, all the other women assemble. The 
husband’s sister makes an image of a male child and places 
it before the pregnant woman; afterwards the image is 
nursed until the birth of the child in order to ensure that 
the baby shall be a boy.” ® 

As yet we have not referred to any of the magic rites 
for increasing the growth of the crops, so we here notice 
two such, “tinged” with religion, one from ancient Mexico, 
the other from modern Germany. 

“In ancient Mexico a festival was held in honour of the 
goddess of maize,’ or the ‘long-haired mother,’ as she was 
called. It began at the time ‘when the plant had attained 


5 Golden Bough, I. p. 72. 

6 ibid. 

7 This is, in the last analysis, the earth, the goddess of fer- 
tility. In her worship women are always prominent. 


70 Sacraments and Soctety 


its full growth, and fibres shooting forth from the top of 
the green ear indicated sthat the grain was fully formed. 
During the festival the women wore their long hair unbound, 
shaking and tossing it in the dances which were the chief 
feature in the ceremonial, in order that the tassel of the maize 
might grow in like profusion, that the grain might be cor- 
respondingly large and flat, and that the people might have 
abundance.’ ® No mention is made of either prayer or 
incantation, but here the rite becomes a sort of acted prayer. 
In the more modern example the connection with religion 
seems to be simply one of agglutination resulting from the 
coincidence of two kinds of festival. 


“In many parts of Germany and Austria the peasant im- 
agines that he makes the flax grow tall by dancing or leaping 
high, or by jumping backwards from a table; the higher the 
leap the taller will the flax be that year. The special season 
for thus promoting the growth of flax is Shrove Tuesday; 
but in some places it is Candlemas or Walpurgis Night (the 
eve of May Day.) The scene of the performance is the flax 
field, the farmhouse, or the village tavern. In some parts of 
Eastern Prussia the girls dance one by one in a large hoop 
at midnight on Shrove Tuesday. The hoop is adorned with 
leaves, flowers, and ribbons, and attached to it are a small bell 
and some flax. Strictly speaking the hoop should be wrapped 
in white linen handkerchiefs, but the place of these is often 
taken by many coloured bits of cloth, wool, and so forth. 
While dancing within the hoop each girl has to wave her 
arms vigorously and cry ‘Flax grow!’ or words to that effect. 
When she has done, she leaps out of the hoop, or is lifted out 
of it by her partner.” ® 





8G. B., I. p. 186; apud E. J. Payne, History of the New World 
Called America, (Oxford, 1892), I. p. 421. Miss Harrison refers 
to the same author in Themis, p. 390 ff., where she develops his 
suggestion of a sequence of gods, beginning with Earth. 

9G. B., I. pp. 138-139. 


Primitive Religion 71 


Before we turn from concrete illustration to discuss the 
significance of these ceremonials, let us look at two other 
rain charms. The first of these is from Macedonia, the 
second from the island of Imbros, off the coast of Thrace 
near the Gallipoli Peninsula. Both, it should be said, are 
in use among Orthodox Greek Christians ! 

“Among the Greeks of Thessaly and Macedonia, when a 
drought has lasted a long time, it is customary to send a pro- 
cession of children round to all the wells and springs of the 
neighborhood. At the head of the procession walks a girl 
adorned with flowers, whom her companions drench with 
water at every halting place, while they sing an invocation, 
of which the following is part :— 


Perperia, all fresh bedewed, 

Freshen all the neighborhood; 

By the woods, on the highway, 

As thou goest, to God now pray: 

O my God, upon the plain, 

Send thou us a still, small rain; 

That the fields may fruitful be, 

And vines in blossom we may see; 

That the grain may be full and sound, 

And wealthy grow the folks around.” (10) 


The resemblances between this ceremony and the one al- 
ready referred to among the Servians,™ are very striking, 
but the difference is no less striking, and vastly more instruc- 
tive. Superficially viewed the rites are practically identical. 
They both consist of dancing and singing maidens, one of 
whom is clothed in vegetation, and who must be periodically 
drenched with water. Here we have the formal rite, practi- 
cally the same in each case. But what of the “myth”? For 


10 G@. B., I., p. 272-278; apud Garnett, Lucy M. J., The Women of 
Turkey and their Folklore: the Christian Women, pp. 123 ff. 


11 supra p. 58. 


72 Sacraments and Soctety 


convenience of comparison let us set them down side by 
side, in parallel columns, thus: 


Perperia, all fresh bedewed, 

Freshen all the Neighborhood; 
We go through the village; By the woods, on the highway, 
The clouds go through the As thou goest,— 


aky; to God now pray: 
O my God,— 
upon the plain, 

We go faster. Send thou us a still, small rain; 
Faster go the clouds; That the fields may fruitful be, 
They have overtaken us, And vines in blossom we may see; 
And wetted the corn and That the grain be full and sound, 

the vine. And wealthy grow the folks around. 


Though there is nothing like a strict parallelism, the ori- 
ginal intention is identical. While, however, in the first in- 
stance the myth simply sets forth the action of the per- 
formers, and its symbolism, which, by anticipation, is treated 
as already fulfilled, in the latter case there is a distinct in- 
vocation of some power, originally represented by the maiden 
called Perperia. By the simple insertion of a reference to 
God, this invocation has been directed to Him, though it is 
noticeable that even in the present form the request is ad- 
dressed directly to Perperia, and only through her to God. 
Thus by slow stages, the modus operandi has been trans- 
formed from the use of a rite which should produce the 
desired effect by sheer compulsion exerted directly on the 
clouds themselves, through the use of a rite, practically 
identical in its mimetic action (though the visiting of wells 
and springs is to be noticed as an addition)” but intended 


12 The spirits of springs were among the first to be invoked. 
Horace’s fount of Bandusia (Odes, iii. 13) is the most famous in 
literature.) cf. Glover, Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman 
Empire, (Lond., 1909), p. 18 ff.; Warde Fowler, op. cit., p. 240. 
Tertullian speaks of the spirits of streams and wells in De Bap. 6. 


Primitive Religion 73 


now to influence some spirit or divinity impersonated by 
Perperia, to its final form of a dramatic supplication ad- 
dressed to God himself. The whole of this transaction has 
been brought about by the variation in the “myth” which ac- 
companies the action, and does not show in any element of 
the action itself. 

A still more radical transformation has taken place in the 
following example, where the “myth” seems to have been 
entirely separated from its original rite, and to have become 
attached to another ceremony with which it had no genetic 
relation. But as details of the ritual action are wanting, it 
may be that some trace of their identity of origin remains. 

“It is worth noting that an invocation of dew for the 
fertilization of man and plants and cattle forms part of an 
Epiphany dSo@puevov that goes on in the island of Imbros 
to-day. A sort of ‘aetiological myth’ is chanted, telling of 
the “Baptism of Christ.’ Our Lady goes down to the Jordan, 
takes water, washes, and then entreats S. John Baptist to 
baptize the Holy Child. St, John makes answer: 


Let him wait till the morn 

That I may ascend into heaven, 

To send down dew upon earth, 

That the master and his lady may be bedewed, 
That the mothers and their children be bedewed, 
That the plains with the trees be bedewed, 

That the springs and the waters be bedewed, 
That the cattle may be tame, 

And the idols may fall down.” (13) 


This is indeed a “confusion” of magic with religion, with 
what appears to have been an ancient rain-making myth, 
carried over into a Christian religious observance. 





13 Themis, p. 174. Miss Harrison suggests an original con- 
nection with a “sky-god,” and says: “We find ourselves in full 
magic, S. John the Baptist and the Baptism of life-giving dew— 
the New Birth. S. John must ascend, must become a ‘sky-god’ 
before he can descend.” 


74 Sacraments and Society 


Can we discover in these various examples any change in 
the attitude which they represent? I think that without 
doubt we can. They represent a very distinct change in the 
attributes of the “object,” from something that can be 
coerced to something that must be persuaded, and therefore 
the meaning of the rite has changed from coercion to per- 
suasion. Here then there appears a perfectly clear difference 
of attitude, and it seems to me to be this changed attitude 
which marks the difference between magic and religion. 
Magic seeks to coerce, religion to persuade. If there was a 
period during which man did not have any conception of 
“souls” or “spirits” or personal powers, which, because ca- 
pricious, needed to be approached circumspectly in order to 
win their favor, then during that period there would be no 
room for a distinction between magic and religion. But with 
the emergence of this concept of powers which may be ca- 
pricious, and behave adversely toward him, comes the need 
of pleasing them, of winning their favor and help, and this 
change of attitude on man’s part marks the birth of religion. 

This change was, no doubt, a slow transition, not a sud- 
den transformation, for man can not change his habits in a 
day, and he is so made that he must grow into “the knowledge 
of the truth.” In the strict sense of the word, religion—as 
we use the term today—does not appear till man has come 
to a belief in “spiritual” powers which control his destiny, 
and in its highest manifestation this reaches the belief in 
One Supreme God. 


The fact that many students have been deceived by ex- 
ternal similarity of rites, into thinking that the significance 
of them must be identical, in spite of evidence of a radical 
difference in attitude, which they either overlooked or ig- 
nored, has led to much confusion of thought. We have seen, 
for instance, in some of the rites which we have studied, 
conclusive evidence of the religious attitude, as just defined, 
though the whole of the rite had all the other external marks 


Primitive Religion 75 


of pure magic. For in Singalang Burong of the Dyaks,'* 
in Daramulun of the coast Murring,*® in Wollunqua the 
giant snake,*® and in the Mura-mura of the Dieri*” we have 
discovered characteristics which showed that the attitude of 
the performers in the sacred rite was one of propitiation, 
and therefore of worship, primitive and debased though it 
is. 

All the evidence goes to show that the Australian abori- 
gines represent a much lower and probably earlier type of 
cultural development than the North American Indians, and 
we should presume that for this reason the religion of the 
Indians would be the farther advanced. In many ways this 
is the case. Among most of the Indians, particularly the 
Algonkin *® and the Siouan tribes,’® there is a belief in a 
mystic power, which though itself impersonal, is the source 
of all life and power, and in the Algonkin form of the belief, 
manitou becomes so closely identified with what we know 
as personality that it might almost be called the “Un- 
known.” 2° This “spirit”? seems to hover between personality 
and impersonality, and never to come to its own. Yet it is in 
all things, and becomes the spirit of each. This is, perhaps 
a higher and more universalized conception than those which 
lie behind the mysterious “beings” of the Australians and 
Borneo natives, but nevertheless the “worship” addressed 


14 supra, p. 14. 
15 supra, p. 17. 
16 supra, Pp. 32. 
17 supra, p. 56. 


18 Jones, W., Journal of American Folk-Lore, XVIII. (1905), 
pp. 183 ff., “The Algonkin Manitou.” 

19 Dorsey, J. O., Bureau of Amer. Anthropol., Report, XI. (1889- 
90) pp. 351 ff. “Study of Siouan Cults.” Fletcher and La 
Flesche, Bureau of Amer. Anthropol., Report, XXVII. (1905-1906), 
p. 134 ff., “The Omaha Tribe.” 


20 Hartland, E. S., Ritual and Belief, p. 37. 


76 Sacraments and Society 


to some of its manifestations does not differ so materially 
from the rites we have already seen. 

The “Sun Dance” is one of the most famous of the Indian 
religious rites, and has been studied by trained observers 
who have recorded its wealth of detail with painstaking 
minuteness.?! It consists almost exclusively of symbolic rit- 
ual “dances” or posturing, accompanied constantly by the 
chanting of the “myth” which interprets the rite. The con- 
nection of the myth with the ritual in the Arapaho dance is 
difficult to discern, a fact which would argue for accretions 
of unrelated material, but in the Cheyenne dance the con- 
nection between the two “is much more striking and logi- 
cal.” ?? In their main features these two examples are much 
the same, however. Both are “offered” as the fulfillment of 
a vow, and both are intended to obtain some desired blessing, 
such as health, victory or abundant crops. The Cheyenne 
dance is not called a Sun-Dance by the Cheyenne themselves, 
but, significantly enough, it is known as “The Ceremony of 
Rebirth.” Its origin has already been suggested in the refer- 
ence to the myths of the Cheyenne,”* and its purpose was 
thus stated by one of the priests: “The object of the cere- 
mony is to make the whole world over again, and from the 
time the Lodge-maker makes his vow everything is supposed 
to begin to take on a new life. * * * At the time of the Lone- 
tipi, when the earth is first created, ** it is just beginning to 
grow. As the ceremony progresses, this earth increases 





21 Especially Geo. A. Dorsey, curator of the Field Museum, and 
the Rev. J. O. Dorsey of the Bureau of American Ethnology, to 
whom we refer. 


22 Dorsey, G. A., The Cheyenne, (Field Museum Publications 
No. 99, Chicago, 1905.), p. 185. 

28 supra, p. 34. 

24'The reference is to one of the ceremonies within the single 


tipi which is erected in the center of the ground on which the 
ceremony is performed. 


_-< 


Primitive Religion 77 


in size, and when the Lodge itself is erected we build a fire 
which represents the heat of the sun, and we place the Lodge 
to face the east that the heavenly bodies may pass over it 
and fertilize it.”?° Certainly nothing could appear to be 
more “magical” than this, and this impression is strengthened 
by Mr. Dorsey’s own comment on the ceremony, for he says: 
“That a majority of Cheyennes of middle life, and even a 
very large number of the young men who have been educated 
in the reservation or non-reservation schools, still have faith 
in the power of the Sun Dance to continue the life and 
health of the tribe, there is no doubt.” 7 But are we on this 
‘account to conclude that the Sun Dance of the Cheyenne 
is not an expression of religion? Before we decide on our 
answer to this question we should consider the similar 
ceremony of the Arapaho. Mr. Dorsey witnessed two per- 
formances of this sacred dance, to one of which, held in 
1902 he was specially bidden. Of this particular ceremony 
he says:?? “It is impossible to conceive of a tribe of Indians 
offering an eight-day ceremony with less friction and with 
a greater amount of religious fervor and happiness than was 
manifested throughout the ceremony of this year.” This 
particular ceremony was “offered” as a result of a vow on 
the part of one of the Arapaho who had been suffering from 
some mental derangement, in the hope that it would restore 
him to perfect health. The sentiment with which it was 
offered can be judged from the vow itself: 


“For the general good of my tribe, that the people 
may increase, that there may be no more sickness, 
I vow to have performed for me the ceremony of 


25 op. cit., p. 187. 
26 ibid. p. 182. 


27 Dorsey, G. A., The Arapaho Sun Dance (Field Museum Pub- 
lications No. 75, vol. 4, Chicago, 1903), p. 4. 


78 Sacraments and Society 


the ‘Offering’s-Lodge.’ I hope that you, Man- 
Above (Chebbeniathan), will meet my desires and 
wishes for my race and for my own benefit, for my 
tipi, my wife and children. I pray that whatsoever 
I may undertake to do hereafter I may accomplish 
it to my best interest!” 8 


However magical the Sun Dance may appear, we are 
forced, on the strength of such evidence as this to admit that 
it breathes the humble spirit of “prayer, for us the foremost 
criterion of true religion.” *° 

Primitive religion is not to be distinguished from magic 
by the outward form of the rites which it employs, much 
less by the absence of such rites, on which its very life de- 
pends. But primitive religion, and all other religion for that 
matter, is clearly differentiated from all forms of pure magic 
by the sentiment of humility which inspires it, by the attitude 
of submission and obedience which it displays, in fact by 
that mysterious and significant thing which we call a “change 
of heart,” or a “‘new life.” 





28 ibid. p. 9. 
29 Marett, op. cit., p. 190. 


VI 
THE EVOLUTION OF A RITE 


Att the habitual activities of the savage are associated 
with fixed rituals, such as those of hunting, fishing and 
making war. Most of these ceremonies are considered by 
anthropologists to be more or less “magical” in character, 
some of them are called religious. I have tried to show that 
fundamentally, and up to a certain point in their develop- 
ment, all such ceremonies are equally magical and equally 
religious; in fact that before the emergence of the idea of 
personal or “spiritual” beings to whom man owes homage 
and obedience, there is no room for the distinction between 
magic and religion, since they represent the same attitude. 
Even after the changed attitude of religion has begun to 
appear, and magic and religion have in so far become 
separated, they both continue to make use of ceremonial or 
ritual performances, the function of which is to bring about 
the desired result in such case. It is the peculiar character, 
usually called “magical,” attached to these ceremonies that 
is believed to obtain the accomplishment of the purpose for 
which they are intended. I purposely avoid the use of the 
much simpler express “to cause the result” for it is not 
at all certain that the casual category is yet understood by 
the participants, in the strict sense in which we understand 
the word “cause.” 

_I have attempted, moreover, to describe in a general way, 
the process by which it seems more than possible that the use 
of such ceremonies might have come about. I wish now to 
draw attention to the pecular character of the Rite, strictly 
so called, and to distinguish it from the more fundamental 


79 


80 Sacraments and Society 


and inclusive thing, the ceremony, which it develops. We 
have seen that the term “‘myth” is used in several senses with 
the result that its meaning is obscured, and in much the 
same way the term “rite” is used rather indiscriminately and 
generally confused with ceremony. The dictionaries do not 
afford us much assistance, usually treating rite as a synonym 
of ceremony and referring from one to the other in the tan- 
talizing way of dictionaries, but they afford a hint of what 
seems to be a real distinction. Ceremony is referred to the 
Sanskrit KAR, to do, while rite is referred to the Sanskrit 
RI, to flow. There may be numerous ways of doing a thing, 
as we have already suggested, and out of these, several may 
receive the necessary sanction to dignify them as ceremonials, 
but there can be but one rite. Ceremony is inclusive and 
conjunctive, rite is exclusive and distinctive; the ceremony is 
for all, the rite for the few. Both rest on custom and 
tradition, and both require codperation and consent, but the 
rite possesses a peculiar sanctity and calls for an explicit faith 
in its efficacy. I have laid down this distinction rather dog- 
matically, for the sake of contrast, but hope to be able to 
show the necessity for insisting on the distinction and 
sufficient evidence of its reality and value. 

It is now pretty generally agreed that primitive man was 
not guided very largely by reason and logic, but by instinct 
and impulse. It is probably justifiable to assume, contrary 
to the intellectual hypothesis, that he was most likely to act 
first, and to think—if he thought about it at all—after- 
wards. And so the explanation of the use of any 


1“T care not what goes on in his so-called mind; the important 
thing is that, given the stimulation, it must produce response, or 
else modify responses which have been already initiated. This 
is the all-important thing, and I will be content with it.” (Wat- 
son, op cit., p. 17). “Now doubtless a considerable amount of 
real inference may be operative at certain stages in the develop- 
ment of magic. Nay, various forms of magic may even be found 
to have originated in a theorizing about causes that did not 


The Evolution of a Rite 81 


ceremonies should naturally come subsequently to their 
habitual use. For a long time, even, there would probably 
not be any reason given for their use, since there would not 
be any one to ask for such. Like Topsy, they “jest growed.” 
Do you ever stop to ask why you drive on the right side of 
the road? A fairly good illustration of our own tenacity of 
custom is furnished by the fact that automobiles, in this 
country, were first made with a “righthand drive” for no 
other reason than that we have always driven horses with 
the “box seat” on the right. I surmise that it was not the 
manifest advantage of driving on the left where the “rule of 
the road” is to pass to the right, but the search for novelty, 
which prompted the first introduction of the “left-hand 
drive” on motor cars. Here was a distinct change of the 
mores but the public “stood for it” and it is coming to be 
universal. But what about the coachmen? They still con- 
tinue in the old way. We drive to the right and we now— 
in automobiles at least—sit on the left, and no one asks 
why! Perhaps there was a good reason once, no doubt 
some antiquarian will be able to tell it to us even now, but 
we reck not of it. In this very homely illustration we have 
all the elements which develop a rite out of a ceremony. 
Group solidarity is one of the prevailing characteristics 
of the lower forms of society. It is hardly justifiable to 
speak of “individuals” in such a society for there are none; 
they are simply members of the group. I suppose that it is 
here that primitive communality differs from modern 
democracy. Though a group must be composed of integral 
parts, in savage society the exigences of maintaining a pre- 





arise out of practice save indirectly, and was the immediate fruit 
of reflection. * * * But, speaking generally, the working 
principle we had better adopt as inquirers into the origin of 
magic is, I suggest, the following: to expect theory to grow out 
of practice, rather than the other way about * * * .” (Marett, 
op. cit., p. 36-39). 


82 Sacraments and Society 


carious existence constitute the group out of its members, 
and their very survival depends largely on its continuance. 
A democracy, on the contrary, is constituted by the in- 
dividuals themselves, and its continuance depends on their 
will. Whether the government be vested in headmen, or a 
council of chiefs, or in a single ruler, it is essentially the 
same for there is but one mind in the group as a whole. 
If any change in the customery procedure takes place, in 
fact before it can take place, it must receive the assent of 
the group. If any one asserts his leadership, it is because 
of his ability to personify the group and express or create 
its opinion. In this way the possibility of some measure 
of change is left open. Speaking of the influence of the 
“Alatunja” or head man among the Arunta, Spencer and 
Gillen say: ? 


“As among all savage tribes the Australian native is bound 
hand and foot by custom. What his fathers did before him 
that he must do, If during the performance of a ceremony 
his ancestors painted a white line across the forehead, that 
line he must paint. Any infringement of custom, within 
certain limitations, is visited with sure and often severe 
punishment. At the same time, rigidly conservative as the 
native is, it is yet possible for changes to be introduced. 
Every now and then a man arises of superior ability to his 
fellows. When large numbers of the tribe are gathered 
together—at least 1t was so on the special occasion to which 
we alude—one or two of the older men are at once seen to 
wield a special influence over the others. Everything, as we 
have before said, does not depend upon age. At this gather- 
ing, for example, some of the oldest men were of no ac- 
count; but, on the other hand, others not so old as they 
were, but more learned in ancient lore or more skilled in 
matters of magic, were looked up to by the others, and they 


2 Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 11. 


The Evolution of a Rite 83 


it was who settled everything. It must, however, be under- 
stood that we have no definite proof to bring forward of the 
actual introduction by this means of any fundamental change 
of custom. The only thing that we can say is that, after 
carefully watching the natives during the performance of 
their ceremonies and endeavoring as best we could to enter 
into their feelings, to think as they did, and to become for the 
time being one of themselves, we came to the conclusion 
that if one or two of the most powerful men settled upon 
the advisability of introducing some change, even an im- 
portant one, it would be quite possible for this to be agreed 
upon and carried out. That changes have been introduced, 
in fact, are still being introduced, is a matter of certainty; 
the difficulty to be explained is, how in the face of the rigid 
conservatism of the native, which may be said to be one of 
his leading features, such changes can possibly even be 
mooted,” 


Theologians are fond of pointing out that faith implies 
doubt, that only where there is some element of uncertainty, 
some possibility of being mistaken, can faith find any place, 
and it is also common to distinguish between fides implicita 
and fides explicita. It is very much this difference which 
distinguishes the rite from the ceremony, if our interpretation 
be correct. 


So long as there is no question of the necessity for the 
use of the ceremony, or any doubt as to its value or efficacy, 
no particular explanation or justifictaion of it will appear ; 
it will not have any doctrinal content. We have pointed out 
how the myth, properly so called, is associated with the rites, 
and there is every reason to suppose that the same is true of 
the ceremony in its earliest form, at which time the vocal 
accompaniment is one element of the ceremony itself. But 
we have insisted that there is no doctrinal significance in 
the myth at this stage. It is when the efficacy of the cere- 


84 Sacraments and Society 


mony to produce any effect comes into question, or when its 
effect ceases to be immediately felt and has to be justified, 
when in fact it ceases to be an immediate content of ex- 
perience, that the aetiological myth attaches itself to the acts 
of the ceremony, and it becomes partially symbolical. Another 
way of saying the same thing is that the meaning of the 
ceremony becomes obscured. It has become so much of a 
convention that it has lost much of the spontaneity which 
originally characterized it.2 Such a change would not come 
about suddenly, and could not be discovered, in all probability, 
except by comparison after the lapse of a considerable time, 
often generations. It is during this time that the separation 
of the myth from the ritual, and the transformation of it 
into legend, or the substitution for the original ceremonial 
myth of an aetiological myth or a formal doctrine takes place. 
A good illustration is to be found in the Book of Exodus :* 


“And it shall come to pass, when your children 
shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? 
that ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of Jehovah’s 
passover, who passed over the houses of the chil- 
dren of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the 
Egyptians, and delivered our houses.” 


There are various reasons why such a transformation 
should take place. The gradual expansion of the primary 
group and the dispersion of its members to such an extent 
that their original solidarity becomes less evident is probably 
one of the most common. Evidently this has already taken 


8 Ritual acts are acts out of the ordinary course—often clean 
out of the ordinary course. Therein consits their essence, their 
virtue. But in the growth of civilization, with the emergence of 
a new religion of different customs, the real meaning of a tra- 
ditional rite is obscured, the rite itself becomes decadent, and 
a new meaning is assigned to it.” (Hartland, op. cit., p. 234.) 

4 Exodus, 12:26-27. 


The Evolution of a Rite 85 


place among the Australian natives and one of the most im- 
portant of the objects of their totem ceremonies, or rites, 
for they have come to be the exclusive rites of particular 
totem groups, is to emphasize their common origin. An 
interesting demonstration of this power of the rite to hold 
the group together is given by Howitt.® 

“During this time the pressure of our civilization had 
broken down the tribal organization; the white man’s vices, 
which the Kurnai had acquired, had killed off a great num- 
ber, the remainder had mostly been gathered into mission- 
stations, and only a few still wandered over their ancestral 
hunting grounds, leading their old lives in some measure, 
and having apparently abandoned their ancestral customs. 
When, however, it was decided that the Jerail ceremony ° 
should be revived for the instruction of their young men, 
I observed with much interest, that the old tribal organiza- 
tion arose again, so to say, out of the dust, and became 
active.” 7 

Levy-Bruhl has suggested, with considerable detail, how 
the use of magical rites becomes more imperative as the con- 
sciousness of an original “participation” in a common life 
loses its vividness, and that at the same time the intellectual 
element in them becomes more and more prominent. At an 
earlier period, before the primary group has begun to break 


Sop. cit., p. 317. 
6i. e. initiation; cf. the Murring term Kuringal. 


7 Referring to these changes in Australia, Hartland says: “The 
least archaic types” (i. e. of the social organization) “exhibit 
the old social organization breaking down and new structures in 
course of formation. With the evolution of society an evolution 
of belief has been going on. It has not been exactly concurrent. 
Culture rarely or never evolves equally in all directions. It is 
a mental process, partly conscious, partly unconscious. The col- — 
lective mind of a given society, like the individual minds of 
which it is composed, is not exercised equally on all subjects 
at the same time.” (op. cit. pp. 97-98.) 


36 Sacraments and Society 


up, there is, he says, an unshaken faith in the power of cer- 
tain ceremonies to produce the most extraordinary effects, 
which no amount of sensible evidence to the contrary can 
in any way weaken, This is an illustration of “implicit 
faith,” and it differs from the kind of faith which now 
appears, if we accept the account which Levy-Bruhl pro- 
poses. He goes on to say: “But when perception becomes 
less mystic, when these fixed connections no longer pos- 
sess the same sovereign control, nature and the environment 
are looked upon with less of prepossession, and these ‘col- 
lective representations’ (ceremonies) commence to reflect 
the effects of experience.” It is at this stage, when the in- 
fluence of actual experience is making itself felt, that the 
significance of “contradiction” begins to be appreciated, and 
logical difficulties begin to appear. Then it is that the em- 
phasis begins to be put upon the representation of mystic 
connections, by all sorts of means familiar to us as “magi- 
cal,” since “the community of essence and of life, which 
formerly had been felt in a fashion truly immediate, was 
now in danger of appearing unintelligible, from the moment 
that it ceased to be vivid.” ® 

Another powerful influence which leads to the modification 
of ritual practices is the infiltration of new ceremonies from 
alien sources. Spencer and Gillen suggest such a transmis- 
sion from tribe to tribe ® and Boas gives illustrations of in- 
consistencies in the mythologies of various Indian tribes 
which evidently have come about through diffusion.1° But 
this opens up the subject of meum et teum and the primitive 
concept of the sacred and profane, which we must con- 
sider. 


8 Les Fonctions Mentales dans les Sociétés Inferieures. (Paris 
1910), pp. 442 ff. 


9 op. cit., p. 14. 


10 “The Growth of Indian Mythologies,” in Journal of American 
Folk-Lore, IX. pp. 1-11, cf. supra p. 35. 


The Evolution of a Rite 87 


Suffice it to say of the Rite that it is the sacred possession 
of one group, to the exclusion of others, and that it has a 
very definite intellectual content. It is a symbol of partici- 
pation in a common life, or represents a definite and inviol- 
able relationship between personal beings, and it is the recog- 
nized and effective means of preserving and promoting this 
common bond. 

Absolute faith in the efficacy of the rite is essential, and 
is tacitly admitted by the very participation in it, but is 
usually more or less explicit in the rite itself. But the power 
of the rite is never absolute. It is contingent. In the purely 
magical rite it is contingent upon the absence of any other 
rite with a preponderating control of the mystic forces in 
the universe, and in the religious rite it 1s contingent upon 
the common consent of both parties to the transaction. 

In all of this the necessity of belief, and the more explicit 
and open avowal of that belief, with the doctrinal element 
which it necessitates, is plainly evident, but the origin of the 
rite must be traced to the larger and more inclusive group 
of ceremonies out of which it grows. It rests primarily on 
tradition and social sanction, and only secondarily, and in so 
far as its individual application may sanction, upon exper- 
ience, 


VII 
THE FUNCTION OF THE RITE: I. 


THERE are few things that are unaccompanied by the use 
of some formal rite, in primitive society, but there are cer- 
tain spheres of primitive life in which the rite is everything, 
and without its use all social life would come to a sudden 
end. The relation of ceremonial to primitive government 
was elaborately set forth by Herbert Spencer + who said “the 
modified forms of action caused in men by the presence of 
their fellows, constitutes that comparatively vague control 
out of which other more definite controls are evolved—the 
primitive, undifferentiated kind of government from which 
political and religious governments are differentiated, and 
in which they ever continue immersed.’ * But there are 
many striking instances in which the control is anything but 
“vague,” and to some of these we will now turn our attention 
in order to discover some of the more important uses of the 
rite. 

First among these, both in point of time and in measure 
of importance is the rite of initiation. We have already 
described some of its elements, as they appear in the forms 
used by the Australian tribes, and now wish to look at these 
initiatory rites and others like them, paying particular at- 
tention to their significance. It is a truism to say that the 
rite is a social transaction, but it is necessary for us to keep 
the fact in mind since its primary function is to create, to 
represent and to reinforce the social bonds which hold indi- 





1 Principles of Sociology, (New York, 1900), II. pp. 1-230, 
“Ceremonial Institutions.” 
2ibid. p. 6. 
88 





The Function of the Rite 89 


viduals together in a social whole. The first of these rites 
is that by which the youth is initiated into the tribal life. 
Such ceremonies are sometimes called “puberty rites,” ® 
though in some cases, as with the Arunta, they spread over 
a series of years, and in most cases there are subordinate but 
kindred rites at birth. In all of these rites there is an ela- 
borate sequence of ceremonies the general significance of 
which is the rebirth of the novice in the character of a full- 
fledged member of the social group.* 

In many of the ceremonies there is a dramatic representa- 
tion of the surrender of the youth on the part of his mother, 
or of the women of the tribe, with whom up to this time he 
has been exclusively associated, and with whom, from now 
on, he will have practically nothing to do. “Among the 
Yaroinga tribe of Queensland, when initiation draws nigh, 
the novice, who has been elaborately decorated with waist- 
belt and head-dress, is brought before his parents and friends. 
“When the women first gaze upon the lad thus ornamented, 
they all begin to cry, and so do his intimate relatives, his 
father and mother’s brothers, who further smear themselves 
over with grease and ashes to express their grief.’” > An 
interesting confirmation of the fact that the separation of 
the child from the women and his incorporation into the 
male portion of the tribe, regardless of his age, and subject 
only to the performance of the proper rite, comes from New 
Caledonia, where circumcision has been advanced from the 
usual age at which puberty occurs, to the age of three years, 
the puberty rite, strictly speaking, having become obsolete. 
In this case, a boy remains with his mother until he is weaned, 





3¢@. g., Webster, H., Primitive Secret Societies, chap. 2: “The 
Puberty Institution.” (New York, 1908) 

4This sequence of ceremonies, and its significance, is elabor- 
ately worked out by Arnold van Gennep in Les Rites de Passage, 
(Paris, 1909), to which we shall have occasion to refer. 


5 Webster, op. cit., p. 21. 


90 Sacraments and Society 


which is followed by circumcision, and the conferring upon 
the infantile tribesman of the marrou, or emblem of man- 
hood, and subsequent to which he “no longer has anything 
to do with his mother, and sees in her nothing more than an 
ordinary woman.” * Regardless of age, regardless of native 
abilities, a man can not become a man in the social sense 
without the use of the prescribed rite which makes him a 
man. The familiar Scotch saying “a man’s a man for a’ 
that” would never apply to primitive society. In the initia- 
tion ceremony among the Coast Murring which we have 
already quoted at some length from Mr. Howitt’s descrip- 
tion,” there was a good example of the strictness of this 
requirement. “There were at this time two or three Biduelli 
men with their wives and children in the encampment, and 
also one of the Krauatungalung Kurnai, with his wife and 
child. When these ceremonies commenced, they, with one 
exception, went away, because neither the Biduelli nor the 
Krauatun Kurnai had, as I have said before, been ‘made 
men.’ The one man who remained was the old patriarch 
of the Biduelli, and he was now driven crouching among the 
women and children. The reason was self-evident; he had 
never been made a man, and therefore was no more than a 
mere boy.’ ® Recalling the humiliating position in which 
this old patriarch was left, huddled among the women and 
covered over with skins and blankets, all for the lack of a 
proceeding which seems to us both meaningless and futile, 


6ibid, p. 23. This instance throws an interesting side light 
on the little understood variation in the administration of the 
Rite of Confirmation in the Greek Orthodox and Anglican 
Churches. The Apostolic rite, which was originally associated 
with Baptism, is kept in this relation by its administration to 
infants in the Greek Church, while the Anglican use has post- 
poned it till about the age of puberty. 

7 supra, p. 16. 


8 Howitt, op. cit., p. 530. 


The Function of the Rite 91 


we get some idea of what initiation really is. In some cases 
where the privilege of initiation has not been availed of for 
some good reason, such as battle, famine, epidemic or some 
other cause that has prevented either the holding of the rites 
or participation therein on the part of certain individuals, 
the lack may subsequently be supplied, and mature men, 
bearded and the fathers of families, take their place side 
by side with the youths, in order to come into the fulness of 
their social heritage. ® 

The bond of brotherhood, strong enough, as in the example 
already mentioned, to make a man give his life for his 
“brother” rests not on the possession of one mother, but in 
having participated in the common life of the tribe. Webster 
says: “It would be impossible to exaggerate the importance 
of these ceremonies as providing social bonds based upon 
ideas of kinship and brotherhood in societies without a cen- 
tralized political control, and as promoting a very real sense 
of solidarity in a tribal organization consisting only of ini- 
tiated men.” 1° 

The commonist and most significant element of the rite 
of initiation is some form of mimetic representation of the 
death and resurrection of the novice.1* Examples of the 
various forms which this representation assumes are almost 
without number and they are to be found in all grades of 
culture from the lowest to the highest, and from the loose 
coordination of society such as it found among the Australian 
tribes to the form of government by tribal chiefs, as among 
the American Indians. As Herbert Spencer suggested, social 
control solely by means of ceremonial gradually gives place 


9 Webster, op. cit., p. 25 ff. 

10 op. cit., p. 27. 

11 cf. Webster, op. cit., p. 38 ff. For a discussion of the sig- 
nificance of these ceremonies vide Frazer, G. B., 3rd. ed., XI., pp. _ 
225-278, where it is related to totemism; and Miss Harrison’s 
Themis, passim from which I quote at some length below. 


92 Sacraments and Society 


to political centralization, but not all the functions of social 
control pass to the chieftains, and we find the growth of 
secret societies, which spring up on the basis of the earlier 
initiatory rites, which are thus preserved. This is one evi- 
dence of the formal representation of the “participation” of 
the members of the group in a common life, to which we 
have already referred.12 Though it represents a develop- 
ment beyond the most primitive form of the initiation rite, 
I select an example from one of these societies in Ceram, 
an island of the Dutch East Indies, because of the interest 
which attaches to the significant details of the rite. The 
society is known as the Kakian association, and its chief 
object is the initiation of the young men.** 

“The Kakian house is an oblong wooden shed, situated 
under the darkest trees in the depth of the forest, and is 
built to admit so little light that it is impossible to see what 
goes on in it. Every village has such a house, Thither the 
boys who are to be initiated are conducted blindfolded, fol- 
lowed by their parents and relations. ach boy is led by 
the hand by two men, who act as his sponsors or guardians, 
looking after him during the period of initiation. When all 
are assembled before the shed, the high priest calls aloud 
upon the devils. Immediately a hideous uproar is heard 
to proceed from the shed. It is made by men with bamboo 
trumpets, who have been secretly introduced into the build- 
ing by a back door, but the women and children think it is 
made by the devils, and are much terrified. Then the priest 
enters the shed, followed by the boys, one at a time. As 
soon as each boy has disappeared within the precincts, a 
dull chopping sound is heard, a fearful cry rings out, and 
a sword or spear, dripping with blood, is thrust through the 


12 supra p. 85. On the development of these secret societies cf. 
Webster, Primitive Secret Societies, chap. 6 ff., cf. etiam infra p. 
141, n. 51. 

138 G, B., 3d. ed., XI., p. 249 ff. 


The Function of the Rite 93 


roof of the shed. This is a token that the boy’s head has 
been cut off, and that the devil has carried him away to the 
other world, to regenerate and transform him. So at sight 
of the bloody sword the mothers weep and wail, crying that 
the devil has murdered their children. In some places, it 
would seem, the boys are pushed through an opening made 
in the shape of a crocodile’s jaws or a cassowary’s beak, and 
it is then said that the devil has swallowed them. The boys 
remain in the shed for five or nine days. Sitting in the 
dark, they hear the blast of the bamboo trumpets, and from 
time to time the sound of musket shots and the clash of 
swords. Every day they bathe, and their faces and bodies 
are smeared with a yellow dye, to give them the appearance 
of having been swallowed by the devil. During his stay in 
the Kakian house each boy has one or two crosses tatooed 
with thorns on his breast or arm. When they are not sleep- 
ing, the lads must sit in a crouching posture without moving 
a muscle. As they sit in a row cross-legged, with their hands 
stretched out, the chief takes his trumpet, and placing the 
mouth of it on the hands of each lad, speaks through it in 
strange tones, imitating the voice of the spirits. He warns 
the lads, under pain of death, to observe the rules of the 
Kakian society, and never to reveal what has passed in the 
Kakian house. The novices are also told by the priests to 
behave well to their blood relations, and are taught the tra- 
ditions and secrets of the tribe. 

Meantime the mothers and sisters of the lads have gone 
home to weep and mourn. But ina day or two the men who 
acted as guardians or sponsors to the novices return to the 
village with the glad tidings that the devil, at the intercession 
of the priests, has restored the lads to life. The men who 
bring this news come in a fainting state and daubed with 
mud, like messengers freshly arrived from the nether world. 
Before leaving the Kakian house, each lad receives from the 
priest a stick adorned at both ends with rock’s or cassowary’s 


94 Sacraments and Soctety 


feathers. The sticks are supposed to have been given to 
the lads by the devil at the time when he restored them to 
life, and they serve as a token that the youths have been in 
the spirit land. When they return to their homes they totter 
in their walk, and enter the house backward, as if they had 
forgotten how to walk properly; or they enter the house by 
the back door. If a plate of food is given them they hold 
it upside down. They remain dumb, indicating their 
wants by signs only. All this is to show that they are still 
under the influence of the devil or the spirits. Their spon- 
sors have to teach them all the common acts of life, as if 
they were new-born children * * * After these initiatory 
rites the lads are deemed men, and may marry; it would be 
a scandal if they married before.” ** 


Miss Harrison has analyzed the initiation rite and finds 
its essential features to be three: 


1. A contest, or Agén, between two opponents. 


Z. A ritual death, or defeat of one of the contestants. 
This is called the Pathos; it is generally announced by a 
Messenger, and followed by the Threnos, lamentation and 
mourning. 


3. A triumphant reappearance or resurrection, and Epi- 
phany. This appearance is naturally accompanied by the 
Peripeteia, or sudden transition from mourning to joy.*® 


There may be the omission or abbreviation of some element, 
but they are all strikingly present in the instance we have 
quoted. 


14 Though Dr. Frazer uses the word “devil” throughout, there 
is nothing to indicate that the supernatural being believed to kill 
and resuscitate the novices has any of the malignant character- 
istics which the name would suggest. 


15 Themis, pp. 331 ff., 342 ff. et. al. 


The Function of the Rite 95 


Miss Harrison has traced the growth of the gods of 
Olympus, and subsequently of the Mystery of Dionysos— 
which is characteristic of all the Greek Mysteries—from this 
earliest rite of initiation. Our immediate interest in this 
theory lies in the fact that it rests on the assumption that 
both social solidarity, the feeling of oneness which binds 
the members of the social group together, and subsequently 
religious communion with the deity of the group are de- 
pendent on the rite. The particular application of the theory 
of the social basis of religion, which Miss Harrison makes 
in Themis, to account for the origin of the Hymn of the 
Kouretes,*® may be generalized and applied to the whole 
question of the function of the rite. We may borrow Miss 
Harrison’s words and apply them to our own problem. She 
says: “The worshippers in the Hymn invoke a Kouros who 
is obviously but a reflection or impersonation of the body of 
Kouretes. They “allege as their reason’ an aetiological myth. 
This myth on examination turns out to be but the mythical 
representation of a rite of mimic death and resurrection 
practiced at a ceremony of initiation. Now the Kouros and 
the Kourtees are figures that belong to cultus; they are what 
would in common parlance be called religious. We are face to 
face with the fact, startling enough, that these religious fig- 
ures arise, not from any ‘religious instinct,’ not from any in- 
nate tendency to prayer and praise but straight out of a social 
custom. Themis and Dike, invoked by the Kouretes, lie at 
the undifferentiated beginnings of things when social spelt 
religious. They are not late abstractions, but primitive 
realities and sanctities. 

“This contradicts, it is clear, many preconceived notions. 
We are accustomed to regard religion as a matter intensely 
spiritual and individual. Such undoubtedly it tends to be- 


16 Discovered in the Temple of the Diktaean Zeus as Palaikas- 
tro, in Crete. cf. British School of Athens, Annual, XI. 299; XV. 
passim. 


96 Sacraments and Society 


come, but in its origin, in the case under investigation it is 
not spiritual and individual, but social and collective. But 
for the existence of a tribe or group of some kind, a cere- 
mony of initiation would be impossible. The surprise is all 
the greater because the particular doctrine in question, that 
of the New Birth, is usually held to be late and due to 
‘Orphic,’ 7. e. quasi Oriental influence. It is held to have 
affinities with Christianity, and is a doctrine passionately 
adhered to by many sects and establishments in the present 
day. It may indeed—in some form or other—as Conversion 
or as Regeneration—be said to be the religious doctrine par 
excellence.” 2” 

The first important function of the rite is this expression 
of a sort of mystic oneness, the binding of a larger or smaller 
aggregation of individuals into a homogenous whole actuated 
by one spirit. This feeling of oneness is inseparable from 
emotion, and emotion felt collectively is emotion heightened 
and reinforced and rendered permanent. This it is which 
the rite accomplishes,*® 

The attention of primitive man centered naturally on the 
unusual and the mysterious. There is a sense in which the 
unusual is always mysterious, just because it is pregnant 
with possibilities which experience cannot anticipate. But 
there is another sense in which certain great events of life, 
though not unknown or peculiar, are nevertheless what we 
call occasional, and for the very reason that some of their 
possibilities are already known, they are more heavily laden 
with mystery than if wholly unique.*® Of this character 


17 op. cit., pp. 27-28. 

18 “Intellectually the group is weak; every one knows this who 
has ever sat on a committee and arrived at a confused compro- 
mise. Emotionally the group is strong; every one knows this 
who has felt the thrill of speaking to or acting with a great 
multitude.” (ibid. p. 43). 

19 “Given the imagination, the sense of mystery and withal so 
much self-consciousness as is required to make the idea of soul, 


The Function of the Rite 97 


are birth and death, adolescence and marriage, famine and 
pestilence, seed-time and harvest, lightning and tempest and 
other crises of various sorts. The primary instincts of the 
propagation and preservation of life must have been, to the 
savage, the centers of great emotional tension, the source 
of great anxiety and of great joy, and round these the 
earliest social restrictions would be bound to gather. These, 
then, became the nodal points round which centered the 
earliest prohibitions or taboos, and from, which developed 
the first germs of religion.?° 

The difficult questions related to taboo and evil spirits are 
too numerous and the field which they open up is too vast 
for us to attempt any discussion of them here. But the prob- 
lems do not affect our main thesis, for no matter how the 
points in dispute between the authorities on these subjects 
may be decided, it has never been questioned that on what- 
ever hypothesis their origin may be explained, the mechanism 
for dealing with them both has always been some form of 
rite !. 

We have already indicated our conviction that so far as 


or double, or shadowy spiritual counterpart; and these crises 
of social experience become clothed with a significance not 
limited to this visible context: the unseen world becomes peopled 
with spirits, and in time with gods.” (Hocking, W. E., The 
Meaning of God in Human Experience, New Haven, 1912, p. 231). 
20cf. The Litany in the Anglican Prayer Book, the oldest for- 
mula, in its present wording, in the Anglican Church, in which 

this element is plainly discernible: _ 
“From lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence, and 
famine; from battle and murder and from sudden death, 

Good Lord deliver us. 
co * * 


“That it may please thee to preserve all who travel by land 
or by water, all women in the perils of child-birth, all sick 
persons, and young children; and to show thy pity upon all 
prisoners and captives; 

We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.” 


98 Sacraments and Society 


the external character of the rite is concerned, its form or 
mechanism, as it were, may be the same in both magic and 
religion. There are many subsidiary rites, performed for 
certain specific purposes, which may, from another point of 
view, be considered as both magic and religious, or either, 
as the case may be. For this reason no satisfactory classi- 
fication of rites is possible. According as one views them 
they may be divided into various groups or classes, but none 
of these is strictly exact, some rites falling in more than one 
group because they have more than one object, and by a 
slight change in the theory or basis of classification, the whole 
scheme is immediately put awry. Numerous attempts have 
been made to draw up a comprehensive scheme which would 
include all rites, of whatever sort, viewing them either from 
the way, ex hypothesi, in which they work, such as by sympa- 
thetic magic or contagious magic; ** or direct and indirect, 
positive and negative; *? or they may be viewed according 
to the effects they produce, and classified as communal or 
personal; ** as giving protection or defense, as signifying 
propitiation or consecration, as producing fruitfulness or 
purification and so on.,*4 

In the midst of such apparent confusion we are making 
the endeavor to cling to the attitude indicated by the rite, in 
the hope that this may be the slender thread which will enable 
us to tread this difficult maze. We have spoken of the 
attitude of social oneness as being perhaps the first and most 
important significance of the rite, and we wish now to pass 
to the consideration of the rite as a means of purification, 
but before doing so it is necessary to say a word of the 


21 Frazer, G. B., vols. I & II. “The Magic Art.” cf. also van 
Gennep, Rites de Passage. 


22 van Gennep, A., op. cit., p. 9. 
23 Brinton, D. G., Religions of Prim. Peoples, (N. Y. 1897). 


24van Gennep, op cit., p. 15; cf. for taboo, Sumner, W. G. Folk- 
ways, (Boston, 1913), p. 30-31. 


The Function of the Rite 99 


attitudes—for there are two, at least—which such a use of 
the rite may represent. 

Taboo occupies a very large part of the attention of primi- 
tive man, and its purpose is to avoid danger of various sorts. 
In it is to be found the primordial germ of moral law, but 
it is not merely inhibition, it was more than “thou shalt not.” 
It has in it an element of positiveness in that it is “destined 
to protect the principle of life in the individual, in the group 
or in the whole of nature.” 75 As van Gennep well points 
out, the taboo represents an active nolition, and not merely 
a suspended act of volition, and it exists only as the counter- 
part of certain positive rites. This distinction is of the 
greatest importance, if true, it seems to me, since psychologi- 
cally it would be made up of the same elements as any posi- 
tive act of will, which assumes the inhibition of all conflicting 
impulses, and would not be comparable, in its emotional or 
physiological concomitants, to inhibition sui generis.2® These 
restrictions may be of two sorts; they may simply be pre- 
ventative, intended to ward off and protect from any pos- 
sible causes of harm; or they may be “destructive” in the 
sense of a more positive and active repression or destruction 
of such causes. Amulets, charms and acts of propitiation 
would partake of the protective character, while exorcism, 
confession and some forms of sacrifice would be of the other 
type, if we apply the distinction beyond the realm of taboo, 
strictly interpreted. As an example of a simple taboo of 
both kinds, the restrictions laid upon women, as a possible 
source of evil influence, would be of one kind, while the 


25 Dussaud, R., Introduction a Vhistoire des religions, (Paris, 
1914), p. 259. | 

26 “Pgychologiquement, il repond 4 la nolonté, comme le rite 
positif 4 la volonté, c’est-a-dire qu’il traduit bien lui aussi une 
maniére de vouloir, et qu’il est une acte, mais non la négation 
d’une acte.” op. cit., p. 10. The author says that Jevons, Craw- 
ley and Salamon-Reinach have made a mistake in overlooking 
this mutual interdependence. 


100 Sacraments and Soctety 


restrictions placed on marriage, to prevent what would be 
considered incest, would be of the other. 


Now all of these things have to do with the avoiding of 
or removal of evil or impurity or some sort of contamina- 
tion which, at first at least, was conceived of as “‘substan- 
tial.” As long as the source of the evil remains outside of 
the individual or the group that fears it, so that it is con- 
ceived of in purely objective terms, we may possibly be in 
the realm of “animism” and a belief in good and evil spirits, 
but we have not yet come to the dawn of religion. When, 
however, the evil gets inside the individual or has found 
lodgment within the group, though we may still have a 

substantial and wholly objective view of the evil, in which 
case the rites of purification will remain purely unmoral, 
yet we are on the verge of the transition to the subjective 
view of evil which marks the dawn of religion, in the higher 
sense of the word. Here then we have the key to the 
interpretation of all rites of purification. In any case there 
is fear which has to be removed, but by the character of this 
fear we may discover the character of the object which 
provokes it. It may be the fear of an individual for some 
unknown evil power that lurketh in secret places, or the fear 
of evil magic or of pestilence on the part of the whole group, 
which prompts the use of a rite of purification, but such 
use will not be religious. 


“*The feare of things invisible is the naturall seed of Re- 
ligion,’ said Hobbes, and he spoke truly, but his statement 
requires some modification or rather amplification. It is not 
the fear of the individual savage that begets religion, it is 
the fear felt together, fear emphasized, qualified by a sort 
of social sanction. Moreover, fear does not quite express 
the emotion felt. It is rather awe, and awe contains in it 
the element of wonder as well as fear; awe is on the way 


The Function of the Rite 101 


to be reverence, and reverence is essentially religious.” 2” It 
is when the group makes some effort to undo an evil in the 
causing of which the group as a whole, or some member of 
it, has had a share, or when an individual seeks to rid him- 
self of a burden on his soul which is other than mere fear, 
that we come to a rite of purification in the true sense of a 
religious rite. 


27 Themis, p. 64. cf. “Mystic fear, then, is a fear charged with 
an overtone of wonder.” (Marett, op. cit., p. 157.) 


VIll 
THE FUNCTION OF THE RITE: II. 


THE transition from the idea of evil as a substantial thing 
like a vapor or miasma, to evil as a matter of thought and 
life, and the accompanying transition from the conception of 
impurity as a ritual disqualification, to the concept of im- 
purity as an immoral quality, has required nearly the whole 
era of man’s history. It marks the evolution of religious 
thought, and its probable course, as suggested by Dr. Farnell, 
has been associated with the progress in the rites of purifica- 
tion itself.t. Ideas of impurity have always centered round 
blood, itself the “sign” of life and the primeval source of 
defilement, and the midway stage in the evolution is prob- 
ably represented by such ritual requirements as those which 
forbade the North American Indian mourners to recount 
tales of fighting or to use “bad words” during the period of 
ritual seclusion which was a part of their mourning, and 
therefore of a purificatory rite, and that other taboo which 
prohibited the laying of a “suppliant-bough” on the altar of 
the Eleusinion at Athens, during the celebration of the 
Eleusinian Mysteries.? In both of these the connection seems 
to be through the association of discord, quarreling and vin- 
dictive speech with blood-shed and death. 

During the earlier stages of religion the impurity or 
“sin,” in its unethical sense, was contagious, as it were, and 
could therefore be transformed to some material thing and 
thus removed. Perhaps the commonest and most wide- 





1Farnell, L. R. The Evolution of Religion, (N. Y. 1905), pp. 
88-162, Lecture iii. “The Ritual of Purification.” 
2 Ibid. pp. 118-114. 
102 : 


The Function of the Rite 103 


spread method of such purification was by means of lustra- 
tion, and about this form of rite nothing need here be said. 
Another very common rite was one usually known as the 
“scapegoat” from its familiar title in our Bible, and its 
importance in the Jewish ritual of the Day of Atonement.’ 
A ceremony of this kind, though very unlike the Biblical 
example, is reported as being held every year among the 
Garos of Assam.* “The animal chosen has a rope fastened 
round its neck and is led by two men, one on each side of it, 
to every house in the village. It is taken inside each house 
in turn, the assembled villagers, meanwhile, beating the walls 
from the outside, to frighten and drive out any evil spirits 
which may have taken up their residence within. The round 
of the village having been made in this manner, the monkey 
or rat is led to the outskirts of the village, killed by a blow of 
a dao, which disembowels it, and then crucified on bamboos 
set up in the ground. Round the crucified animal long, 
sharp bamboo stakes are placed, which form chevaux de 
frise round about it. * * * Here the crucified ape or rat 
is the public scapegoat, which by its vicarious sufferings and 
death relieves the people from all sickness or mishap in the 
coming year.” Here there is no suggestion of anything re- 
sembling moral evil or sin, and the rite is probably purely 
magical, and intended to banish “devils.” Examples of hu- 
man scape-goats, from many parts of the world, are well 
authenticated, some of whom were brutally killed, some of 
them made to suffer only indignities and pain and later per- 
mitted surreptitiously to return from their banishment.’ But 





8 Leviticus 16. 

4G. B., 3d. ed. IX, p. 208. 

5A very interesting survival of what was probably a human 
scapegoat sacrifice in its origin, and was transformed from a 
heathen to a Christian ceremony is described at length by Frazer 
in G. B. Il., p. 164 ff., “St. Romain and the Dragon of Rouen.” 
For other examples cf. G. B. IX. p. 210-274. 


104 Sacraments and Society 


even in these, the highest type of purification is not neces- 
sarily reached, as is amply demonstrated by the numerous 
human sacrifices of the ancient Aztecs. As we have often 
repeated, we are likely to be deceived by the outward ap- 
pearance of the rite, for purely magical ideas find expres- 
sion under ritual acts which appear highly ethical, while 
highly religious and ethical attitudes are sometimes expressed 
in an outward rite which seems purely magical, as in the 
following instance.’ 

“The Aurohuaca Indians, who under the tropical sun of 
South America, inhabit a chilly region bordering on the per- 
petual snows of the Sierra Nevada in Columbia, believe that 
all sickness is a punishment for sin. So when one of their 
medicine-men is summoned to a sick bed, he does not en- 
quire aiter the patient’s symptoms but makes strange passes 
over him and asks in a sepulchral voice whether he will con- 
fess his sins. If the sick man persists in drawing a veil of 
silence over his frailties, the doctor will not attempt to treat 
him, but will turn on his heel and leave the house. On the 
other hand if a satisfactory confession has been made, the 
leach directs the patient’s friends to procure certain odd- 
looking bits of stone or shell to which the sins of the suf- 
ferer may be transferred, for when that is done he will be 
made whole. For this purpose the sin-laden stones or shells 
are carried high up into the mountains and laid in some spot 
where the first beams of the sun,® rising in clear or clouded 
majesty above the long white slopes or the towering crags of 


6 [bid. pp. 275-305. 
7 op. cit. III., pp. 215-216. Frazer classes this as magic! 


8 Water, fire and sunlight are the great purifiers, fire and the 
sun most prominently in Parseeism or the system of Zoroaster. 
“So curiously does it often happen that the savage reaches the 
goal of his wishes by a road which to civilized man might appear 
at first sight to lead far away from it.” (G. B. IX, p. 206). 


The Function of the Rite 105 


the Sierra Nevada, will strike down on them, driving sin 
and sickness far away by their radiant influence.” ® 

We have an expression, “open confession is good for the 
soul,” which rests on the firmest possible foundation of de- 
monstrable fact. It has already been pointed out that many, 
if not all, of the magical rituals sprang, in the first instance, 
from a purely natural and almost inevitable physical reac- 
tion. In their simplest and most involuntary form they con- 
stitute a mere discharge of pent-up feeling, under the com- 
pulsion of a single dominant idea which is, for the moment 
as irresistible as hypnotic suggestion.‘° But as the magical 
performance takes definite form, and the person allows him- 
self to consent in what he is doing, it suddenly ceases to be 
mere make believe, and to take on a positive value as a 
means of catharsis. It “does you good” to kick the chair 
that insists on getting in your way in the dark (though we 
carefully teach our children to refrain from such outbursts 
of “temper” ), and we all know the relief of “getting a thing 
off our mind” when we have finally faced the inevitable and 
said what had to be said, but which we have shrunk from 
saying, and have realized that it has been a cause of suffer- 
ing to us as long as we kept it hidden. As I write, my eye 
rests on the morning paper,?* on the first page of which is 
an account of the confession of a murderer who has suc- 
ceeded in hiding his crime (he had ruthlessly hacked four 
people to death with an axe) for a few days over a year. 
Now, “to escape the tortures of his own conscience” in an- 
other city than that in which the crime was committed, and 
where he seems to have been free of the slightest suspicion, 





9cf. Nicholas, F. C. “The Aborigines of Santa Maria, Colum- 
bia,” in American Anthropoligist, New Series, III. (1901), pp. 
639-641, on which Frazer’s account rests. 

10 This is known as “primitive credulity”; cf. Marett, op. cit. 
p. 41. 

11 The Chicago Daily Tribune, July 19, 1915. 


106 | Sacraments and Society 


he voluntarily admits his guilt. Robbery was the motive for 
the crime, but the murderer failed of his booty because just 
as he had “‘cleared his way to the money a dog barked—and 
ever since, he says, he has been unable to sleep without hear- 
ing and being awakened by a dream dog’s barking.” “ ‘It 
was as I killed the last—the grand-daughter—that the watch- 
dog barked. I was afraid to stay any longer and I went 
away without the money. I have heard the dog barking ever 
since. When I try to sleep he wakes me. I have travelled 
all over the country, but the dog is still with me.’ ” 

I have already spoken of the paralyzing effect of fear, and 
it is easy enough to see that the savage, who knew only this 
effect would attribute some mystic might to the “impurity” 
of which he was fearful, because his vital energies were dried 
up at their source and he “had no heart in him.” One of the 
most striking developments of modern psycho-therapeutics *% 
is the evolution of a technique for breaking down the inhibi- 
tions which have grown up round the remembrance of the 
“accursed thing” and one of its most startling elements is the 
psychoanalysis of the sufferer’s dreams.1* We are only be- 
ginning to realize how deep seated and all pervasive is the 
influence of fear, with the other side of the same great truth, 


12 Sir Henry Irving’s famous rendering of the “The Bells” at 
once comes to mind, and the scientific insight of its author is 
once again demonstrated. 


13 Reference may be made to Miinsterberg, H., Psychotherapy, 
N. Y., 1909; Worcester, E., et al., Religion and Medicine, N. Y., 
1908; Freud, S., The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, N. Y., 
1914; Brill, A. A., Psychoanalysis, its Theories and Practical 
Application, Phil., 1914. 


14“There are, therefore, two exits for the individual uncon- 
scious emotional process. It is either left to itself, in which case 
it ultimately breaks through somewhere and secures for once a 
discharge for its excitation into motility; or it succumbs to the 
influence of the foreconscious, and its excitation becomes con- 
fined through this influence instead of being discharged. It is 


The Function of the Rite 107 


how vivifying and compelling is the Cou of confidence 
which rests on faith, 

But what we are particularly interested in here is to em- 
phasize the part that a sacred rite may play in removing all 
fear and thereby supplying that inward confidence of purity, 
that catharsis, which we are too prone to look upon as a 
“spiritual” thing and therefore to be “spiritually appre- 
hended.” Aristotle suggested that this was the function of 
Tragedy and certain kinds of music,1* and it seems fairly well 
demonstrated that tragedy and the drama rest on the founda- 
tion of the initiation rite.’ 


the latter process that occurs in the dream. * * * We now see 
what this function is. The dream has taken it upon itself to 
bring the liberated excitement of the Unconscious back under 
the dominion of the foreconscious; it thus affords relief for the 
excitement of the Unconscious and acts as a safety-valve for the 
latter, and at the same time it insures the sleep of the forecon- 
scious at a slight expenditure of the waking state.” (Freud, 8. 
The Interpretation of Dreams, (N. Y., 1913), p. 457.) 


15 ‘Any state of body,’ observes the physiologist Miiller, ‘ex- 
pected with certain confidence, is very prone to ensue;’ and this 
follows not only in cases of savage religion, but even where 
religion itself is not the superinducing cause.” (Brinton, op. cit., 
Do0)s 

16 Politics V. 7. 


17 cf. supra p. 33. “In the face of facts so plain it seems to 
me impossible that the drama had its roots elsewhere than in 
the worship of Dionysos. Aristotle is right ‘tragedy arose from 
leaders of the Dithyramb.’ (Themis, p. 339). Plato had de- 
scribed the Dithyramb as related to the Birth of Dionysos, but 
without comment. (Laws 700). “Scholars, guiltless of any 
knowledge of initiation-ceremonies, have usually assumed that 
Plato has been misled by the false etymology of the Double Door. 
Is it not at least as possible that this false etymology arose, in 
part of course, from the form of an ancient ritual title misunder- 
stood, but in greater part from the fact that Plato’s statement 
is literally true, that the Dithyramb was originally the Song 
of the Birth.” (Themis, p. 32) 


108 Sacraments and Society 


Some kind of ceremony or other, something done, or to 
use Miss Harrison’s phrase “‘pre-done” is the foundation of 
all methods of catharsis. The very term itself is shared by 
religion and medicine, and for us to-day probably suggests 
medical practice rather than religious rite, but it was not 
always so. Speaking of the Arunta (of whom I hope the 
patient reader is not thoroughly tired), Dr. Marett says: 
“As is well known, their cult, whether it be classed as magic 
or religion, centers in the ceremonies connected with certain 
objects of stone or wood that they call churinga, the word 
meaning ‘secret’ or ‘sacred.’ A theology abounding in 
terminological inexactitudes enables all sorts of other sacred 
things to be somehow associated by the Arunta with these 
churinga; for instance totem animals, their legendary ances- 
tors, and their own personal names. Nevertheless the fact 
remains that the material objects taken in themselves are 
reckoned as a means of grace of altogether superlative im- 
portance. Now when the civilized observer watches the 
black-fellow rub one of these sacred-stones against his stom- 
ach he is apt to smile, or perhaps weep, at so crude a ritual 
act. Let him, however, mark the black-fellow’s earnest and 
devotional manner. Better still, let him attend to the account 
he gives in his halting language of the inward experience 
accompanying the rite. For he asserts in so many words that 
it makes him ‘strong’ and ‘wise’ and ‘glad’ and ‘good.’ This 
is not prayer, of course. Yet in a very real sense the savage 
asks humbly and is answered.” 1* 


The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, founding his ar- 
guments wherever possible on well-known elements of the 
Jewish system of worship, declares that “apart from shed- 
ding of blood there is no remission.” +® The elaborate pro- 
visions of the Levitical code fully bear out this assertion, but 


18 Marett, op. cit. pp. 190-191. 
19 Hebrews 9:22. 


The Function of the Rite 109 


there is no doubt that sacrifice, as such, while almost indis- 
pensable to the higher and purer types of religion, is not 
“primary” but is itself a development.?° In all probability, 
however, the transition to sacrifice came about through the 
peculiar paradox of the sacredness of blood, which made it 
both the source of the greatest contamination and also the 
vehicle of that purifying principle which removes all taint 
of defilement and sin.2t Whatever may have been the first 
significance of sacrifice, once established as a rite it must 
follow the course of development and transition which we 
have found to be true of all other rites, and from age to age 
it would attract to itself the changing interpretations which 
accorded best with the religious ideals and conceptions of 
time. All of the elaborate sacrifices of the Jewish system 
may be divided into two general classes, each representing a 
different idea, each of which may possibly, at some remote 
time, have dominated the “myth” which accompanied them. 
These two classes of sacrifice are “peace offerings” and 
“sin offerings.” One kind of sacrifice was offered as a to- 
ken of fellowship or friendliness and devotion to Jehovah, in 
fulfillment of a vow or as a sign of thanksgiving. This type 
was accompanied by a feast at which part of the sacrifice 


20 The do ut des explanation of sacrifice, known as the “gift 
theory” assumes that the idea of an anthropomorphic god was 
primary. While we cannot enter into the argument, it must have 
been evident that I accept the theory which considers this con- 
ception itself to have been derivative. For a brief argument 
against the gift theory vide Themis. pp. 134 ff., and for the classic 
contravention of it, Robertson Smith’s Religion of the Semites, 
passim. vide supra p. 2, n. 2. 


21 Both the Latin sacer and the Greek root gy have the double 
meanings sacred and accursed, holiness and pollution. cf. Far- 
nell, Evolution of Religion, p. 97. Leviticus 6:30 requires the 
sin offering for the priest or the whole congregation to be wholly 
consumed by fire, outside the camp, as being more polluted. cf. 
Chap. 4:3-21, 


110 Sacraments and Society 


was consumed by the worshipper.??, There was no provi- 
sion for purification, it was taken for granted as a condition 
requisite of the offerer.2* The other kind of sacrifice, the 
sin offering, on the contrary, was intended to take away any 
uncleanness or guilt and restore the offerer to the state of 
purity requisite of one who would enter into the presence 
of the LORD. Though there is some confusion in the use of 
terms describing this type of offering, it is quite evident that 
there were two kinds of sin for which offerings were re- 
quired, sins committed “unwittingly,” for which the sacri- 
fice was called a “sin offering’ ** and those ‘‘trespasses” or 
known faults for which the “trespass offering’ was re- 
quired.?> In both of these cases the sacrifice removes the un- 
cleanness and pardons the sin. But in them the communal 
feast—logically enough, since the offerer himself is not pure 
at the time—is limited to the ministers at the altar.*® 

It seems to me to be an interesting fact that these two 
kinds of sacrifice, with their two wholly different meanings, 
and representing two convergent attitudes on the part of 


22 Leviticus 7:15-18; 22:29-30. 

23 “And as for the flesh, every one that is clean shall eat there- 
of: but the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace- 
offerings, that pertain unto Jehovah, having his uncleanness 
upon him, that soul shall be cut off from his people.” (Lev. 
7:20-21.) 

24 Leviticus 4 passim and 6:25-30. The ignorance applies to 
the character of the sin, not to the specific offence, for when a 
definite offence which was committed in ignorance becomes 
known, the offering seems to be considered as a trespass offering. 
cf. Lev. 5:2-5; 16-19. 

25 Ibid. 5:1—6:7; 7:1-7. 

26 The intention of the sin offering (in the comprehensive 
sense of the term) is well shown by the sequence of events pre- 
scribed in cases where both sin and burnt offerings are to be 
offered, e.g. Lev. 5:7-10. The trespass offering must be offered 
jirst to prepare the way for the burnt (scil. peace) offering to 
follow. 


The Function of the Rite 111 


the respective offerers, suggest two of the possible senti- 
ments out of which the use of sacrifices may have arisen, and 
that each of these has actually been urged by students work- 
ing in different fields, as supplying the origin of sacrifice. 
Professor Robertson Smith,?” studying Semitic origins ad- 
vocates the communal meal as the fons from which has 
flowed the sacrificial stream of the ages. Professor Farnell,?* 





27“The one thing directly expressed in the sacrificial meal is 
that the god and his worshippers are commensals, but every other 
point in their mutual relations is included in what this involves. 
Those who sit at meat together are united for all social effects; 
those who do not eat together are aliens to one another, without 
fellowship in religion and without reciprocal social duties.” 
(Religion of the Semites, p. 269.) “The distinction between the 
feast and an ordinary meal lies, it may seem, not in the material 
or the copiousness of the repast, but in its public character. 
When men eat alone they do not invite the god to share their 
food, but when the clan eats together as a kindred unity the 
kindred god must also be of the party.” (Ibid. p. 280.) “The 
principle that the god claims his share in every slaughter has its 
origin in the religion of kinship and dates from the time when 
the tribal god was himself a member of the tribal stock, so that 
his participation in the sacrificial feast was only one aspect of 
the rule that no kinsman must be excluded from a share in the 
victim.” (Ibid. p. 282.) 

28 “Tt is probable that in the Homeric and earlier period certain 
external objects used in ritual were regarded as mysteriously 
charged with divinity, so that those who handled them were 
brought into temporary communion with the deity through physi- 
cal contact. The altar and the idol were both derivatives from 
an earlier pillar cult, and as divine power was supposed to be 
immanent in the sacred pillar or stone, which could produce 
certain supernatural effects upon those who touched them, the 
same efficacy was imputed to the altar and the idol, and the 
persons or things that were put into contact with them were 
regarded in some sense as consecrated to the deity. This, then, 
is one form of divine communion, through contact established 
between the worshipper and certain sacred objects, and in so 
far analogous to the sacramental ritual.” (“Sacrifiicial Com- 
munion in Greek Religion” in Hibbert Journal, II (1903-4) p. 309). 


112 Sacraments and Soctety 


studying Greek origins suggests that it began as catharsis by 
means of the outpouring of the blood of an animal, first 
made sacred by contact with the altar in which the mystic 
power of purification dwells. 

At first sight these two theories appear to be in hopeless 
contradiction, but in reality they are two sides of the same 
truth. Purification is only to be acquired by union with the 
dwine and the cry of the humble and suffering soul has 
always been “Make me a clean heart, O God: and renew a 
right spirit within me.’ 2° Whether union with the deity 
be sought through contact with the blood which represents 
the divine life, or through partaking divinity, the conception 
underlying the rite in both cases is a participation in the 
mystic power of the god, and both forms of sacrifice lead to 
a rite of mystic communion. 

“Magic, sacrament, and sacrifice are fundamentally all 
one,” says Miss Harrison. ‘They are all the handling of 
the sacred, the manipulation of mana, but usage has differ- 
entiated the three terms. Magic is the more general term. 
Sacrament is usually confined to cases where the ceremonial 
contact is by eating; sacrifice has come to be associated with 
the killing of an animal or the making over of an object by a 
gift. Sacrament is concerned rather with the absorbing of 
mana into oneself, magic deals rather with the using of that 
mana for an outside end. Moreover sacrifice and sacrament 
tend to go over to the public, ceremonial, recurrent contacts 
effected collectively ; whereas individual, private, isolated ef- 
forts after contact tend to be classed as magic.” *° 

Examples of this close connection between sacrifice and 
communion are to be found in many forms of religion. Let 
us consider one from the Fiji Islands, which retains its con- 
nection with the initiation ceremony and the drama of re- 
birth. 


29 Psalm 51:10, P. B. Version. 
30 Themis, p. 1388. 


The Function of the Rite 113 


“In certain districts of Viti Levu, the largest of the Fijian 
Islands, the drama of death and resurrection used to be acted 
with much solemnity before the eyes of young men at initia- 
tion. The ceremonies were performed in certain sacred pre- 
cincts of oblong shape, enclosed by low walls or rows of 
stones but open to the sky. Such a precinct was called a 
Nanga, and it might be described as a temple dedicated to 
the worship of ancestors; for in it sacrifices and prayers 
were offered to the ancestral spirits. * * * 

“In these open-air temples of the dead the ceremony of 
initiating the young men was performed as a rule every 
year *? at the end of October or the beginning of November, 
which was the commencement of the Fijian New Year; 
hence the novices who were initiated at that season went by 
the name of Vilavou or New Year’s Men. * * * Asa 
preparation for the solemnity the heads of the novices were 
shaved and their beards, if they had any, were carefully 
eradicated.*? On four successive days they went in proces- 
sion to the temple and there deposited in the Holy of Hollies 
their offerings of cloth and weapons to the ancestral spirits. 
But on the fifth and great day of the festival, when they 
again entered the sacred ground, they beheld a sight which 
froze their souls with horror. Stretched on the ground was 


31 One authority says that as a rule these ceremonies were held 
“only every second year.” Dr. Fraser’s comment is suggestive 
and illuminating: ‘‘Perhaps the seeming discrepancy between 
our authorities on this point may be explained by Mr. Joske’s 
statement (p. 259) that the rites are held in alternate years by 
two different sets of men, the Kai Vesina and the Kai Rukuruku, 
both of whom claim to be descended from the original founders 
of the rites.” (G. B. XI. p. 244, n. 3.). ef. Rev. Lorimer Fison, 
Journal of the Anthropological Institute, XIV. (1885) p. 27ff; 
Basil Thompson, The Fijians, Archiv. fiir Ethnographie, II. 
(1889,) pp. 254-266. 

82 On depilation in initiatory rites cf. Webster, op. cit. p. 3bff; 

Hair and nails were prominent in magic and taboo. vide G. B. 
I. 57ff; III.55, 159n., 267 ff., et al. 


114 Sacraments and Society 


a row of dead or seemingly dead and murdered men, their 
bodies cut open and covered with blood, their entrails pro- 
truding. At the farther end sat the High Priest, regarding 
them with a stony glare, and to reach him the trembling 
novices had to crawl on hands and knees over the ghastly 
blood-bedabbled corpses that lay between. Having done so 
they drew up in a line before him. Suddenly he blurted out 
a piercing yell, at which the counterfeit dead men started to 
their feet and ran down to the river to cleanse themselves 
from the blood and guts of pigs with which they were be- 
slobbered. The High Priest now unbent his starched dig- 
nity, and skipping from side to side cried in stridulous tones, 
“Where are the people of my enclosure? Are they gone to 
Tonga Levu? Are they gone to the deep sea?’ He was 
soon answered by a deep-mouthed chant, and back from the 
river marched the dead men come to life, clean, fresh, and 
garlanded, swaying their bodies in time to the music of their 
solemn hymn. They took their places in front of the novices 
and a religious silence ensued. Such was the drama of death 
and resurrection. It was immediately followed by a sacra- 
mental meal. Four old men of the highest order of initiates 
now entered the Holy of Holies. The first bore a cooked 
yam carefully wrapped up in leaves so that no part of it 
should touch the hands of the bearer: the second carried a 
piece of baked pork similarly enveloped: the third a drink- 
ing cup full of water and wrapt round with native cloth; and 
the fourth bore a napkin of the same stuff. The first elder 
passed along the row of novices putting the end of the yam 
into each of their mouths, and as he did so each of them 
nibbled a morsel of the sacred food: the second elder did 
the same with the hallowed pork: the third elder followed 
with the holy water, with which each novice merely wetted 
his lips; and the fourth elder wiped all their mouths with his 
napkin. Then the High Priest or one of the elders addressed 
the young men, warning them solemnly against the sacrilege 


The Function of the Rite 115 


of betraying to the profane vulgar any of the high mysteries 
which they had witnessed, and threatening all such traitors 
with the vengeance of the gods.” * 

We cannot be certain, of course, just what the natives un- 
derstood this rite to mean, or what it did for them, but there 
is every appearance of a mystic communion either with the 
ancestral spirits or with the “gods” whose vengeance they 
were to expect would punish any betrayal of the mystery 
thus revealed to them. 

Communion with the gods through a sacramental meal 
may be traced back to the very beginnings of civilization. 
Professor Farnell suggests that it may have been a product 
of “Mediterranean” religious thought. He says: ** “This 
mystic act, of which there is no clear trace in the Old Testa- 
ment, is reported from Egypt, and it appears to have been 
part of the Attis ritual of Phrygia. We find doubtful traces 
of it in the Eleusinian and Samothracian mysteries; also a 
glimpse of it here and there in the public religion of Hellas. 
But it is best attested as a potent force in the Dionysiac wor- 
ship, especially in a certain savage ritual which we may call 
the Thracian, but also in the refined and Hellenized service 
ASV EL GIaT ai he 

“The attractiveness of the mystic appeal of the Sacrament 
appears to have increased in the latter days of paganism, es- 
pecially in its period of struggle with Christianity. That 
strangest rite of the expiring polytheism, the taveofodtov, the 
baptism in bull’s blood, in the worship of Kybele, has been 
successfully traced back by M. Cumont to the worship of the 
Babylonian Anaitis.2° The sacramental concept was the 
stronghold of Mithraism, but can hardly be regarded as part 
of its heritage from Persia, for it does not seem to have been 


83 Frazer, G. B. XI. pp. 243-246. 
34 Greece and Babylon, (Edinburgh, 1911). pp. 25 ff. 


35 cf. Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, (Chicago, 1911), 
pp. 66, 227 n. 32 and 34; 


116 Sacraments and Society 


familiar to the Iranian religion nor the Vedic Indian.** In 
fact, the religious history of no other Aryan race discloses 
it with clearness, save that of the Thraco-Phrygian and Hel- 
lenic. Was it, then, a special product of ancient ‘Mediter- 
ranean’ religious thought? It would be important to know, 
and Crete may one day be able to tell us, whether King 
Minos took the sacrament. Meantime, I would urge upon 
those who are studying this phenomenon in the various re- 
ligions the necessity of precise definition, so as to distinguish 
the different grades of the sacramental concept, for loose 
statements are somewhat rife about it.” 

In his Cults of the Greek States Prof. Farnell gives a de- 
tailed ** and comprehensive summary of all the available in- 
formation concerning the Mysteries of Dionysus to which 
we may turn for an account of the rite of mystic communion. 
In general, the chief characteristics of the primitive religion 
of Dionysus were ecstatic enthusiasm, self-abandonment in 
communion with the deity through orgiastic rites, chief 
among which was this savage sacramental act, and the un- 
usual prominence of women in the ritual. The true signifi- 
cance of the Bacchic orgy or “enthusiasm’’ was that it car- 
ried the worshipper out of himself and made him évdeoc, 
“full of the god.” %8 


86 Though this is also the view of M. Cumont and one hesi- 
tates about questioning the opinion of two such authorities, I 
think there is ample justification for the belief that the origin 
of the Mystic Meal in the Mysteries of Mithra can be traced to 
pre-Zoroastrian Mazdism. vide infra p. 132, n. 40. 


87 op. cit. V. (Oxford, 1909), pp. 85-344. 


88 vide the discussion of ecstasy in Rhode, E., Psyche, (Frei- 
burg, 1894) pp. 344 ff. “The various systems of ‘grades and steps’ 
by which the mediaeval formalist tried to satisfy his intellect, 
leads (sic) the modern student no nearer truth than this simple 
statement of the mystic that his soul had been ‘away’.” (Burr, 
Mrs. Anna R., Religious Confessions and Confessants, Boston, 
1914, p. 350). “When by excess of mind, we are rapt above or 


- 


The Function of the Rite Lav, 


“The wild movement of the Bacchai, the whirling dance 
and the tossing head, the frantic clamour and music of the 
wind instruments and tambourine, the waving of the torches 
in the darkness, the drinking of certain narcotics and stimu- 
lants, are recognized hynotic methods for producing mental 
seizure or trance ;*° and the drinking of the blood and eating 
the raw flesh of an animal that incarnated the god is also a 
known form of divine communion. And what are we to 
say of the ‘silence of the Bakche,’ alluded to in the strangest 
of Greek proverbs.*° Is it the exhaustion that follows upon 
over-exaltation, or is it the very zenith reached by the flight 
of the spirit, when voices and sounds are hushed, and in the 
rapt silence the soul feels closest to God?” * 

Prof. Farnell refers ** to a strange survival of what seems, 
without doubt, to be a remnant of the primitive Dionysiac 
rite, in the celebration of the Lenten Carnival among the 
Greek Christians in the neighborhood of the ancient capital 
of Thrace. The details of the rite need not detain us.** but 


the opinion of this learned authority is that “we can hardly 


within ourselves into the contemplation of divine things, not only 
are we straightway oblivious of things external but also of all 
that passes in us....” (Richard of St. Victor, trans. in Gardner, 
B., Dante and the Mystics, p. 178, apud Burr, op. cit., p. 349.) 

89 Speaking of the sense of the divine presence, Brinton says: 
“It is neither an intuition nor an induction; it is neither an 
inference from observation, nor the conclusion of a logical pro- 
cess. A study of its aspect in savage life shows that it arises 
from the perception of the latent activity of the subconscious, 
from the strange sense of activity, will, and power, which, under 
favorable conditions of concentration (suggestion) it imparts to 
the more or less conscious self.” (Religions of Primitive Peoples, 
pp. 59-60.) 

40 Paroemiog. Graec Diogen, 3.43. 
- 41 Farnell, Cults, V. pp. 161-162. 

42ibid. p. 107. 

43 They are fully described, with illustrations, in Journal: of 
Hellenic Studies, XXVI. (1906), pp. 191 ff., Dawkins, R. W. “The 
Modern Carnival in Thrace and the Cult of Dionysus.” 


118 Sacraments and Society 


suppose that this ‘Dionysiac’ ritual is a heritage merely from 
the late Hellenism that was powerful on the fringe of Thrace 
and penetrated the interior with the actor in the goat-skin. 
We must consider it to have descended either from an im- 
memorial peasant-religion, out of which the worship of the 
Thracian Dionysos itself arose, or from this very worship 
itself which has never wholly perished, though it has lost its 
name, in its own land.” *° So persistent is a religious rite 
when once it has become established. 

The highest form of pagan religion known to us is prob- 
ably that of the Orphic Brotherhoods which themselves 
evolved out of a sort of “reformed” Dionysus cult.*® Here 
we find for the first time a clear indication of the ethical 
concept of sin, “the necessity of purification from it, and an 
ecstatic hope in a happy immortality, attained through com- 
munion.” *? This Orphic movement was an attempt to purify 
the mystic ritual of the Dionysiac mysteries of some of their 
barbarism, and to reorganize a voluntary “magical secret so- 
ciety, adapted once more to a reviving human need.”** Of 
the emphasis on the human soul and the doctrine that it had 
fallen from heaven, we shall later have opportunity to speak, 
but here we must, for the present, leave the most striking 
instance of the “spiritualizing” of a religious rite, and in- 
sistence on its value as a means of communion with the di- 
vine and as the only way to purification of spirit, before the 
advent of Christianity.*® 


44 His appearance here furnishes the “missing link” in the 
theory which connects Attic Tragedy with the Dionysus cult. 

45 op. cit. V. pp. 107-108. 

46 “Orpheus, the ideal of the Orphic, is a Dionysus tamed, and 
clothed, and in his right mind—in a word Apollinsed.” Cornford, 
F. M. From Religion to Philosophy, (London, 1912), p. 195. 

47 Farnell, op. cit., V. p. 239. 

48 Cornford, op. cit., p. 196. 

49 On the theory that much of Orphic doctrine was derived from 
Persia in the sixth century B. C. when it first appears in Greece, 
vide Cornford, op. cit. p. 162 and Themis, p. 462, n. 4 and 5. 


IX 


THE PAGAN MYSTERIES 


“DEATH was the first mystery; it started man on the road 
to the other mysteries.” The craving for immortality opened 
the way to the success of the ancient pagan mysteries which 
dominated the religious thought of the Greco-Roman world 
at the beginning of the Christian era, and no survey of the 
history of religious rites would be complete if it overlooked 
this mighty movement. 

It is next to impossible to give anything like an adequate 
idea of the magnitude and importance of the Mystery Re- 
ligions, within the limits of a single chapter, but, as Wend- 
land says: “Christianity forced its way into the West over 
the same road and in the same century in which the Oriental 
religions made their great conquest,” ? and if we would dis- 
cover the most potent of all the forces which have exerted 
their influence over the development of Christian rites we 
must look to the pagan Mysteries. 

At the outset we must distinguish between the Greek Mys- 
teries, the origin of which is hidden in prehistoric times, and 
the Oriental Mysteries, which began to find their way into 
the western world after the conquests of Alexander. With 
the former we have but little interest as they had ceased to 
be of wide influence before the Christian era,? though the 


1Fustel de Coulange, La Cité antique, I. Chap. 2, end; quoted 
by Cumont, Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, (Chicago, 
1911), p. 99.) 

2 Wendland, P., Die Hellenistisch-romische Kultur, (Tubingen, 
2nd ed. 1912), p. 167. 

3On the Greek Mysteries vide Farnell’s monumental work 
Cults of the Greek States, 5 vols. (Oxford, 1896-1909). For a 


119 


120 Sacraments and Society 


most important of them, the Mysteries of Eleusis, were still 
celebrated during the second century. The distinctly local 
character of this cult prevented it, however, from obtaining 
the widespread influence which attached to those other mys- 
teries, such as the Dionysiac and those from the Orient, 
which did not enjoy the distinction, nor suffer the limitation, 
of being a strictly state cult.* The most widely known cere- 
mony of the Mysteries of Eleusis is that to which Clement 
of Alexandria refers, and which is sometimes taken to have 
been a sort of sacramental communion. Clement is our 
sole authority for this rite, the formula of which was as fol- 
lows :5 “T have fasted, I have drunk the cyceon, I have taken 


list of general works on the Mysteries, of which there are few, 
vide Case, S. J.. The Evolution of Early Christianity, (Chicago, 
1914), p. 287. 

Case, Op. cit., pp. 295-297. The fame of Eleusis was very 
great, and some of its public ceremonies were most gorgeous 
and impressive. People from all lands went to Athens, seeking 
initiation, and it is probably the terminology of these particular 
Mysteries which fixed the Greek usage and finally passed into 
Christian literature. 

5 Protrep. ii. 21. I quote from Foucart’s translation which 
slightly expands the original. Firmicus Maternus (De err. prof. 
rel. 18) thought such formulae were used as pass-words by way 
of identification among the initiates, and this interpretation is 
followed by most subsequent authorities (e. g. Case, op. cit. 
p. 294). Foucart (Les Mystéres d’Eleusis, Paris, 1914, p. 377) 
however says this formula was not a pass-word, but the response 
made by the initiate to a question put by the ministers of the 
temple, once for all. This was done just after having partaken 
of the mystic repast, or just before entering the telesterion, 
where the initiation was completed. cf Arnobius, Adv. Gent., 
V. 26, vide etiam Lenormant, P., in Contemporary Review, vols. 37 
and 38 (1880), three articles on the Eleusinian Mysteries. 

The cyceon, or barley drink is mentioned by Homer as a 
common beverage, used often for invalids, and supposed to have 
medicinal properties. It consisted of flour mixed with water, 
to which was added a little honey, wine or cheese, or perhaps 
some dried mint. (Jbid. p. 358). 


The Pagan Mysteries 121 


that which was in the chest, and after having tasted, I have 
replaced it in the basket; I have taken it again from the bas- 
ket and put it in the chest.” 


The chest and basket were both probably of wicker work, the 
common implements of daily life, which were sacred solely in 
this connection. 

As to the significance of this ceremony, Foucart thinks that 
it is to be found in the fact that Demeter had drunk the cyceon 
when she was herself exhausted by her sorrow, and the cakes 
were made from the wheat or barley which the goddess had con- 
descended to give to mankind for their use. By this partaking 
of sacred food the mystae were united to the goddess and by it 
they pledged themselves to her service. 

According to Foucart’s theory the climax to the first grade 
of the Mysteries was supplied by the enacting of the sacred 
drama of the Rape of Core, while the second rank of initiation, 
that of the epoptae culminated in a similar drama of the mar- 
riage of Demeter and Zeus, which provoked the scathing con- 
demnation of the Christian Fathers against the immorality of the 
mysteries, a condemnation which Foucart thinks undeserved. 

An essential part of the initiation was the Acyousva, Which 
accompanied the ‘things done.” We have already seen that this 
is an essential part of all “magic” ceremonies, the true myth. 
Lobeck had supposed that this was a formal instruction given to 
the mystae on the religion of the temple and the arrangement of 
ceremonies of the initiation, but Foucart says: “there was neither 
conference nor homily, still less any dogmatic instruction. The 
words spoken were but a commentary on what the mystae saw.” 
(op. cit. p. 418). 

As to the significance of the Mysteries, Foucart thinks it con- 
sisted in the imparting of certain mystic formule which were 
to enable the initiate to pass safely into the realm of happiness 
in the lower world (pp. 424-425), but there was also the further 
idea of reanimating the deities by this yearly reenactment of in- 
cidents from the lives of the gods themselves. (p. 493, cf. p. 
487). Farnell questions this (Cults, III. p. 182, 193), but agrees 
that the main purpose of the Mysteries was to confer the gift 
of a blessed life in the next world. 

On Foucart’s theory of the Egyptian origin of the Mysteries of 
Hleusis cf. Farnell, Cults. III. pp. 141-142; and for the significance 


122 Sacraments and Society 


The myths concerning Dionysus combine in making him a 
stranger to Hellas, and his worship probably came from both 
Phrygia and Thrace to Thebes in Boeotia, which was his first 
stronghold, sometime before the Ionic settlement of Asia 
Minor (1.¢., at the end of the second millenium before our 
era). In Greece, as in Thrace from which he came, Diony-~ 
sus was an earth-deity of vegetation and fruitfulness, and 
the phallos was often used as his emblem.” The chief feature 
of his worship was the orgiastic enthusiasm to which we have 
already referred, but the principal rite of his cult was the 
omophagia or eating of the raw flesh of a bull or goat, in 
which the god Dionysus was supposed to be incarnated, and 
by which means he came to the votary and imparted the 
divine frenzy.® 

During the sixth century B. C. Greece was threatened by 
Persia on the east and by Carthage on the west, and this 
danger had its share in provoking the religious revival which 
led to the formation of religious societies which sought to 
bind their members closely together by the bond of a re- 
ligious and moral purity attained through a mystic initiation. 
Chief among these “brotherhoods” were those associated 
with the name of Orpheus, who was a reformer of the rites 
of Dionysus.® 


of the initiation, the mystic drama, and his theory of their 
origin, ibid, pp. 130-131, 143. 

6 Farnell, Cults, etc. V. pp. 89 ff; 109-115; 125-127. The name 
Dionysus is compound and means “the god of somewhere” or 
“of something.” The name is Aryan, however, and that of the 
Mother-goddess Semele is to be recognized in a Phrygian inscrip- 
tion discovered by Ramsay, which probably refers to the earth 
goddess. 

7On the significance of phalloi, vide, Themis, pp. 266 ff and 
311 ff, where their relation to the snake and the cornucopia as 
fertility symbols is shown. 

8cf. Themis, p. 118. 

®8On Orpheus vide Miss Harrison’s Prolegomena to Study of 
Greek Religion (Cambridge, 1903), pp. 455 ff. On other similar 


The Pagan Mysteries Pao 


At Phyla in Attica, the home of Euripides, there were 
mysteries reputed to be even older than those at Eleusis, and 
there worship was offered to the great Earth-goddess ‘‘who 
was Mother and Maid in one” and to Eros, the spirit of love 
and life, later so prominent in the Orphic tradition. It seems 
probable that here the cult of Earth was primitive, and that 
the addition of Eros had been due to later Orphic influence. 
Whether the Orphic Theogany of the Hymns dates from be- 
fore the Persian wars,?° in which case the emphasis on the 
worship of the heavenly bodies would be a return to the more 
primitive worship of the Greeks,** or whether the worship of 
the sun by Orpheus was the result of Persian (Magian?) 
influences,’? as seems quite possible, the fact remains that 
the Orphic reformation laid its emphasis on the worship of 
the sun, and transferred the abode of the blessed from the 
under-world to the realms above the heavens. 

Orpheus himself was probably a real man and a devoted 
reformer. Strabo wrote of him, in the time of Augustus, 
believing him to have been a native of the village of Pim- 
pleia, near the Thermian gulf ?* and St. Augustine ** wrote 
of him, with Musaeus and Linus, that though called “theo- 
logians,” because they wrote of the gods, they were not wor- 
shipped, “though in some fashion the kingdom of the godless 
is wont to set Orpheus as head over the rites of the under- 
world.” The peculiar duty which Orpheus performed was 


societies cf. Foucart, Les Associations Religieuses chez les Grecs 
(Paris, 1873.) 

10 This is the opinion of many authorities, cf. Cornford, op. cit. 
De ios ile Le 

11 Socrates suspected that “the first men in Hellas recognized 
only those gods who are now recognized by many nations: sun, 
moon, earth, stars, and sky.” (Plato, Kratylus 397 C.; cf. Laws, 
885 E) apud Cornford, op. cit., p. 177. 

12 cf, Themis, pp. 462-466. 

13 Strabo VII, Fragments 17, 18, and 19. 

14 De Civit. Dei XVIII. 14. 


124 Sacraments and Society 


to inculcate personal purity of life. The growing emphasis 
on the individual was made by him the key to his system, 
which was preoccupied with the salvation and immortality of 
the soul, to be gained only by leading the life of ritual and 
moral purity..> The soul of man was from the stars and was 
imprisoned here in the flesh, “an exile from God and a wan- 
derer,” 1° but this could be remedied through purity. “The 
cardinal doctrine of the Orphic religion was then the possi- 
bility of attaining divine life. It has been said by some that 
the great contribution to ‘the religion of Greece was the hope 
of immortality it brought. Unquestionably the Orphic be- 
lieved in a future life, but this belief was rather a corollary 
than of the essence of the faith. Immortality, immutability, 
is an attribute of the gods. As Sophocles says :1* 


‘Only to gods in heaven 
Comes no old age nor death of anything, 
All else is turmoiled by our master Time.’ 


* %* ¥* Their great concern was to become divine now. 
That could only be attained by perfect purity.” +® 

The Orphic cultus did not maintain its separate existence, 
but passed, through alliance with philosophy, especially that 
of Pythagoras, into a “way of life.” +® In this form it merges 


15 “The Orphic ritual may be credited with two great contri- 
butions to religion—the belief in immortality and the idea of 
personal holiness.” (Campbell, L., Religion in Greek Literature, 
London, 1898, p. 253). 

16 Hmpedocles Frag. 115; Plotinus Hnn. IV. 8, 1; cf. the familiar 
hymn “I’m but a stranger here, Heav’n is my home,” and infra 
p. 176 ff. 

17 Oed. Col. 607 trans. Mr. Gilbert Murray. 

18 Harrison, Prolegomena, p. 478. 

19 cf. Case, op. cit. p. 301-302; Cornford, op. cit., pp. 194 ff. 
“From Dionysus come the unity of all life, in the cycle of death 
and rebirth, and the conception of the daemon or collective 
soul, immanent in the group as a whole, and yet something more 


The Pagan Mysteries 125 


into the Mystical Tradition, the sources of which, like those 
of the river which went out of Eden, have never been dis- 
covered. 

The problem of the Greek philosophers of the fifth century 
before our era was the problem of philosophy to-day—to 
reconcile knowledge with belief, reality with change. Par- 
menides and the Eliatics cut the gordian knot by declaring 
that change was unthinkable, and therefore could not be, 
and knowledge led to reality, or “that which is.” Heracleitus, 
on the other hand, looked for reality in the actual experience 
of ceaseless change, and tried to reconcile apparent oppo- 
sites within a comprehensive whole. We cannot ignore phil- 
osophy in our study of religious rites, for religion made up 
a large part of the experience of those days, and the solu- 
tions of current problems which the philosophers propounded 
were but the generalizations of their social experience, which 
included the popular cults and the religious traditions of their 
past. The theories of Heracleitus prepared the way for the 
system of Protagoras and the Sophists, and the “universal” 
of Socrates. 

The problem of the Sophists, as also of the post-Aris- 
totelian schools of thought, was to discover some basis for a 
new unity which should take the place of the ancient regime 


than any or all of the members that partake of it. To Orpheus 
is due the shift of focus from earth to heaven, the substitution 
for the vivid, emotional experience of the renewal of life in na- 
ture, of the worship of a distant and passionless perfection in the 
region of light, from which the soul, now immortal, is fallen 
into the body of this death, and which it aspires to regain by the 
formal observances of asceticism. But the Orphic still clung to 
the emotional experience of reunion and the ritual that induced 
it, and, in particular, to the passionate spectacle (theoria) of the 
suffering God. Pythagores gave a new meaning to theoria; he re- 
interpreted it as the passionless contemplation of rational, un- 
changing truth, and converted the way of life into a ‘pursuit of 
wisdom’ (philosophia).” (ut supra pp. 199-200). 


126 - Sacraments and Society 


of social solidarity which was fast passing away. Pro- 
tagoras declared that “man is the measure of all things,” and 
applied this dictum to the practical problem of the disap- 
pearing standards of judgment in the break-up of the po- 
litical and social institutions.2° As in the sixth century B. C. 
the Persian peril had led to the rise of mystic societies, so 
again in the fourth, the conquest of Alexander not only 
opened the way for the influx of the Mysteries of the Orient, 
but these same Mysteries, with their new bond of fellow- 
ship and their promise of a supernatural knowledge, and a 
certainty of fixed happiness, beyond the power of even death 
itself, supplied the social need of the hour. 

The earliest of the foreign Mysteries to penetrate into 
Greece, and probably the most important, was the cult of 
Isis and Osiris, or Serapis, as he was known in the Greek 
world. “Of all the gods of the Orient, Isis and Serapis were 
the only ones that retained a place among the greater di- 
vinities of the Hellenic world until the end of paganism.” #4 
This new religion was, in one sense, the creation of Greek 
dominion in Egypt. It seems certain that the worship of 
Serapis, at the Serapeum of Alexandria, was an expedient to 
weld together the Greek and Egyptian elements of the do- 
minion of the Ptolemies by means of the powerful unifying 
influence of religion.22 We have no conclusive evidence of 


20 For a brief summary of the Sophists, vide Rogers, A. K., A 
Students’ History of Philosophy (New Ed., N. Y., 1913), pp. 41 
ff., 86-87. 


21Cumont, Oriental Religions, p. 80. As will be seen later, 
Mithra gained no foothold in Greece. Cumont thinks that the 
doctrines of Orpheus had prepared the way for the success of 
the Isis cult, by its emphasis on immortality. (ibid. p. 231 n. 22). 


22 cf. Cumont, op. cit., pp. 74-75. The question of the relation 
of Serapis to Osiris is a vexed one. The ancient world believed 
that Ptolemy Soter brought the image of Serapis from Thrace 
and set it up in the temple connected with his palace at Alex- 
andria, in obedience to a “vision.” (vide Tacitus, Hist. IV. 83-84; 


The Pagan Mysteries 127 


the existence of “mysteries” of Isis and Serapis before the 
Empire, but even though this particular form of cult were 
introduced from Thrace, it merged very naturally into the 
ancient worship of Isis and Osiris in Egypt.?® 

As early as the time of Cicero, that is in the last century 
before our era, if not from the days of Sulla (cir. 138 B. C.), 
the worship of Isis had reached the Island of Andros, off the 
coast of Greece,” and Pausanias?° is responsible for the 
statement that a statue of Isis was sent to Athens by one of 
the Ptolemies, testimony which is not of as much value as 
the imperishable marble in which the Hymn from Andros is 
carved, because there is less liability of error in fixing the 
date of the epigraphic text than in accepting the testimony of 
an author who records a tradition some three hundred years 
after the fact. Whatever may have been the process by 
which the worship of Isis spread from Egypt through the 
Mediterranean world, and the length of time which it took, 
there is ample evidence of the fact. The Serapeum at Poz- 
zuoli, that busy little port of the Campania at which St. 


Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 28-29; Clem-Alex., Protrep. IV.; Origen, 
Contra Cels. V. 38). Modern scholars do not give this account 
much credence, cf. Schmidt, E., Kultirbetragungen in Religions- 
geschicktliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten, (Giessen, 1909), Band 
viii. Heft 2, p. 47. 

23 cf. Cumont. op. cit., pp. 229-230, n. 4. It has been thought by 
some Egyptologists that because no term has been discovered in 
the monuments which corresponds with the word ‘mystery,’ 
therefore none existed. Foucart points to Herod. II. 171, where 
a ceremony he witnessed is described as a ‘mystery’ and says: 
“On peut done croire que si les Egyptiens n’avaient pas dans 
leur langue le mot de mystéres, du moins ils avaient la chose.” 
(Les Myst. @Eleu., pp. 77-78.) 


24cf. Cumont, op. cit., pp. 217 n. 14 and 230 n. 6. A similar 
‘hymn, in part from the island of Andros, is translated in Budge, 
Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection (2 vols. London, 1911), 
II, 289. 

25 Pausaniasg, I. 18, 9. 


128 Sacraments and Society 


Paul landed on his way to Rome,?® was mentioned in a city 
ordinance of the year 105 B. C. which has been preserved," 
and Caligula gave Isis and Serapis the “freedom of Rome.” *8 

Though transplanted to Greece and Italy, the character of 
the divinities remained unchanged, and their power rested on 
the offer of immortality which was proclaimed in their name. 
Osiris was Lord of the under-world, and Isis his spouse was 
associated with him in the Kingdom of Dead, but seems also 
to have been a goddess of fertility as well. Gradually Isis 
displaced Osiris, or Serapis as he was called in Europe, and 
became the center of the Mysteries, the goddess of many 
names.?® Cumont says of the spread of this cult: “At the 
beginning of our era there set in that great movement of 
conversion that soon established the worship of Isis and 
Serapis, from the outskirts of the Sahara to the vallum of 
Britain, and from the mountains of Asturias to the mouths 


26 Acts 28:13. 


27C. I. L., X. 1781; I. 15-16. apud Cumont, op. cit. p. 232 n. 23. 
The Temple of Isis at Pompeii is one of its chief treasures, and 
the frescoes from it may be seen to-day in the National Museum 
of Fine Arts at Naples. They are described, as is the whole of 
the Temple, with much of its ritual, in Mau, Pompeii, Its Life 
and Art. (London, 1899), pp. 163 ff. 

28 Cumont,op. cit. p. 198. 


29 These are recounted in the last part of the 11th chapter of 
Apuleius’ Metamorphosis or the Golden Ass, which is the great 
source for the details of the ritual of the Mysteries. (Butler’s 
translation, Oxford, 1910, 2 vols.). 

An interesting problem which has not been dealt with, to my 
knowledge, is the question how Isis came in this way to dis- 
place Serapis in the Egyptian Mysteries when they were trans- 
planted to the Greco-Roman world. 

A suggestion of the transition, even in Egypt is evident, I 
think, in the Tebtunis Papyri. In No. 78, line 12 ff. “Serapis 
and Isis” are mentioned; but in No. 299, which is dated 50 A. D., 
or about 150 years later, the order is “Cronos, the most great 
god, and Isis and Serapis, the great gods.” 


The Pagan Mysteries 129 


of the Danube.” *° But it was the religion of Egypt, though 
“viewed, interpreted, and apprehended by genreations of 
Greeks” that was carried into Europe, and Egyptian it re- 
mained till the end. “It was this Hellenized composite of 
old Egyptian religion and Greek preconceptions which passed 
out to give her a sanctuary even in such a provincial city 
as Pompeii, to leave such monuments in Rome as Hadrian’s 
obelisk on the Monte Pincis, which in Egyptian hieroglyphs 
still proclaims to the modern world not only the deification of 
the beautiful Greek youth, Hadrian’s favorite, as ‘Osiris- 
Antinous,’ but at the same time the enthronement of the 
ancient mortuary god of Egypt in the palace of the 
Caesars,” 5 

Turning now from Greece to Rome, let us glance briefly at 
the Mysteries of Mithra, of which very little is known, save 
its great popularity in the Roman world, and its wide ex- 
tent.*? 


30 op. cit. p. 88. The most exhaustive list of all the discovered 
inscriptions and places where traces of the worship have been 
found is given by Drexler in Roscher’s Lex. der Mythol., II. col. 
409 ff. 


81 Breasted, J. H. Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt. 
(N. Y., 1912), pp. 368-369. 


32 The monumental work of M. Franz Cumont is the authority 
on the subject, and contains practically every reference to Mithra 
in the literature of the ancients. It is Textes et monuments rela- 
tifs aux mystéres de Mithra, Paris, 1894-1899, 2 vols. The “Con- 
clusions” of this work, comprising the latter half of the first 
volume, were republished in 1902 under the title Les Mysterés de 
Mithra, and this has been translated and published in English, 
under the same title: The Mysteries of Mithra (Chicago, 2nd ed., 
1910). For some subsequent references, cf. the same author’s 
Oriental Religions, pp. 260 ff. 

Darmesteter’s notes and introduction appear in the first two 
parts of the Zend Avesta, in the Sacred Books of the Hast (Pt. 1 
in vol. 4; pt. 2 in vol. 23), but the third part is edited by L. H. 
Mills (vol. 31). 


130 Sacraments and Society 


Cumont, who is facile princeps as an authority on this sub- 
ject, thinks that Mithraism took the shape in which it was 
known in the Roman Empire, at the time of the Macedonian 
conquest,** though the first mention we have of it is not till 
67 B. C.84 There are a number of references to the ancient 
worship of the Persians, with some mention of Mithra, and 
then almost a complete blank until the references to the 
Mysteries of Mithra in the Roman world, most of which 
come from Christian apologists.*> The real popularity of the 


On Persian Eschatology vide, Mills, L. H., Avesta Hschatology 
(Chicago, 1908). 

On Zoroaster, see the standard biography, Jackson, A. V. W., 
Zoroaster (N. Y., 1899); and the same author’s Persia, Past and 
Present (N. Y., 1906). 

The most recent work on Zoroastrian religion, with a theory 
which distinguishes the Magi sharply from the “Chaldeans,” is 
J. H. Moulton’s Harly Zoroastrianism (London, 1918); cf. his 
smaller Early Religious Poetry of Persia (Cambridge, 1911). 

On Mithra at Rome, vide Reville, Jean, La religion & Rome 
sous les Sévéres (Paris, 1886), esp. chap. 3; also Dill, S., Roman 
Society: Nero to Marcus Aurelius (London, 1904), pp. 585 ff. 

Mention should also be made of the early work of Haug, M., Hs- 
says on the Sacred Language, Writings and Religion of the Parsis 
(Boston, 1878). 


38 Mysteries of Mithra, p. 15, cf. Textes et monuments, I, 8: 
“The Mazdaism of the Persians, in combination with Chaldean 
astrology has produced Mithraism. We are led to conclude, there- 
fore, that the religion from which it was derived must have been 
perfected in Mesopotamia before the fall of the empire of Darius.” 
Moulton’s view of the probable origin is as follows: “Through 
Herodotus, and to an incomparably less degree through other 
travellers, the Greeks knew something of the Iranian religion, 
untouched by the Reform.” (t.e., Zoroaster’s); “and the same, 
when contaminated with Semitic accretions, so as to form what 
we call Mithraism, became extremely powerful in the Roman 
world.” (EH. Z., p. 226.) 


34 Plutarch, Vita Pompeii, 24. cf. Appian, XI. 63. 92. 


85 Herod. I. 181-140; Strabo, XI. 14, 9; XV. 3, 13-20; Plu- 
tarch, I. dé O. 46 ff; Vita Artax. 4. Dion Cassius, LXIII, 1-5; Lu- 


The Pagan Mysteries 131 


cult began with the Flavians, toward the end of the first 
century of our era, and with growing influence it became 
the most important element in Roman paganism, and so re- 
mained till its downfall about the end of the fourth century.** 

The peculiar contribution of Mithraism was its rigid sys- 
tem of ethics, associated with which was its doctrine of ethi- 
cal dualism, proceeding from the conception of two spiritual 
realms, one ruled by the Spirit of Light and Righteousness, 
the other by the Spirit of Darkness and of Evil. Mithra is 
the Lord of justice and holiness, and “for the worship of 
fecundity he substitutes a new reverence for continence.” *” 
One result of this is seen in the exclusion of women from 
his Mysteries, a peculiarity which was soon compensated for 
by an alliance with Cybele, the “Great Mother” in whose 
cult women were given a prominent part. The exact charac- 
ter of Mithra himself is very difficult to determine, no doubt 
for the very natural reason that during the centuries, as he 
has passed from Iran to Rome, it has undergone consider- 
able modification. Herodotus was mistaken in his identifi- 
cation of this deity, taking “Mitra” to be a goddess,*® but 


cian, Deor. Concil. 9; Menippus 6 ff.; Jup. Trag. 8; Diog. Laer., 
Proem. 6. Justin, Dial. c. Tryph. 70, 78; Apol. I. 66; Tertul., De 
Praes. Haeret., 40; Adv. Marc. I. 138; De Bap. 5; De Corona 15; 
Basil Ep. 258; Jerome, Hp. 107:2; Greg. Naz., Adv. Jul. I. 70, 89. 


86 Orien. Religs., p. 140. 
87 Cumont, Orient. Religions, p. 157. 


88 Herod. I. 131-132, Mr. A. J. Grant appends the following note 
to his translation in loco: “This mistake of Herodotus does not 
appear to have been discovered by the Greeks before the time of 
Alexander. Xenophon indeed mentions Mithras (Cyrop. VII, 5 D. 
53; Cecon. IV, 24) and also Persian sun worship. (Cyrop. VIII, 
3, sec. 12) but he does not in any way connect the two. Strabo 
is the first classical writer who distinctly lays it down “that the 
Persian Mithras is the Sun-god.” 

On the difference in spelling the name (Mitra) found in Hero- 
dotus, Moulton remarks that before the appearance of the name 


132 Sacraments and Society 


Plutarch says the Persians call him the “Mediator” because 
he was in the “midst” between light and darkness, that is 
between Ormazd and Ahriman, and he goes on to say “And 
they tell us that he first taught mankind to have vows and 
offerings of thanksgiving to the one, and to offer averting 
and feral sacrifices to the other.”°® From the time that 
Mithra began to be known in the western world, there has 
been confusion between two distinct but similar views of him, 
one of which made him represent the firmament above, the 
other taking him to be the sun.*® Probably the basic idea 


in Old Persian inscriptions, the Greek writers transliterated the 
name to, but that after the fourth century B. C., this form gives 
place to §>. He says: “We may probably infer a more exact 
knowledge of the Persian pronunciation, coupled with the gradual 
spiranting of the Greek § which made it an exact representation 
of the Iranian sound.” (op. cit. p. 427.) 


89 Plutarch, J. € O. 46, Goodwin’s trans. 


40 On the meaning of the “firmament” or vault of heaven, vide 
Moulton’s exhaustive note in H. Z. p. 391 ff. In his Harly Persian 
poetry, Moulton says: “The ‘firmament’ of the first chapter of 
Genesis was very prominent in early Semitic mythology; and it 
is remarkable that the Assyrian metru, ‘rain’ comes so near to 
Mithra’s name. If this is his origin, we get a reasonable basis 
for the Avestan use of the word to denote a contract, as also for 
the fact that the deity is in the Avesta patron of Truth, and in 
the Veda, of Friendship. He is ‘the Mediator’ between heaven and 
earth, as the firmament was by its position, both in nature and 
mythology; an easy corollary is his function of regulating the 
relations of man and man.” (op. cit. p. 37). 

Herodotus associated Mitras (mistaken though his identifica- 
tion was) with Anahita, and with the other nature deities wor- 
shipped by the primitive Persians. Such an association of 
Mithra, as the firmament, with a goddess of “the waters” would 
seem best to answer all the probabilities of his earliest form, if 
we may judge by analogies with other cults. Or he may have 
been a rain god, as Moulton suggests. (cf. further on this 
point H. Z., pp. 65-67 vide et. Case, op. cit., pp. 311-312). 

The transition to a Sun-god would be a natural one, as the 


The Pagan Mysteries 133 


which underlies both views is to be found in the fact that 
Mithra is the Lord of LIGHT. 


conception gained ground that light comes from the sun. which 
it does not in the first chapter of Genesis, at least. But on 
Moulton’s hypothesis that the Magi were not Persians, and that 
they introduced sunworship into Parseeism, we would have the 
suggestion of a further motive for the change. I would also beg 
to suggest that we have the same change indicated in the familiar 
Tauroctonous group of Mithra and the bull. The primitive 
Iranian cult worshipped the Sacred Bull as the giver of all bless- 
ings, and a clever syncretistic expedient would enable the Magi 
_ to explain the gift of all things through the death of the Bull 
(vide Bundahis IV. Yast XXIX., Vendidad XXI. i. 1) by simply 
making the Sun his slayer! 

This may seem a childish explanation, but less rational expedi- 
ents than this have been resorted to in attempts to reconcile in- 
compatible elements in the fusion of cults. And it seems to me 
that it has at least as much to recommend it as the solutions pro- 
posed by Cumont and Moulton. Cumont is forced to admit that 
the clever acrostic of Commodius (3d. cent. A. D.), on which he 
founds his argument, rests on a “myth” which finds no place in 
the Avesta, and he adds: “It appears that from a scruple which 
Wwe cannot comprehend they have, so to speak, twisted (re- 
tournee) it, and Mithra, instead of stealing cattle, is their de- 
liverer.” (7. e¢ M., I. 171, n. 7; cf. II. 18.) The uncertainty of 
such conclusions is well illustrated by the fact that in his edi- 
tion of the Mihir Yast, in which the passage about Mithra de- 
livering the cattle occurs (4. e. Yt. X. 22, sec. 86) Darmesteter 
adds a note which just reverses Cumont’s explanation, identify- 
ing the stealer of cattle with a Vritra (demon) in the legend, 
and Mithra with an Indra. (NS. B. H., vol. 23, p. 119.) Moulton’s 
explanation, on the other hand, identifies Mithra with Yima, the 
“prince of demons” who caused the “fall” according to Avestan 
mythology. (cf. Ys. XXXII. 8.). The reason for this suggestion 
is that the Yima’s sin(?) consisted in the attempt to confer im- 
mortality upon mankind by giving them bull’s flesh to eat—an- 
other noteworthy example of communion with the deity by eating 
a sacred animal. (vide E. Z., pp. 148 ff., 356). 

This identification of Mithra with Yima lands us in hopeless 
confusion, since, in the first place, the glory which departed from 
Yima was siezed by Mithra himself (apud Yt. XXII. 33, 34) and 





134 Sacraments and Society 


Whether the ethical dualism which divided the realms of 
good and evil between two opposing deities was of Parsi 


the sin of Yima is said to be the deadliest sin for the Parsee, that 
of untruthfulness. The connection of Mithra with the slaying 
of the bull must be accounted for, however, since it is so early 
and so prominent, and its right solution will certainly furnish 
us a valuable clue to the later Mysteries. In the Bundahis, the 
Avestan “Genesis,’ the earliest record of the slaying of the bull is 
attributed to Ahriman, the prince of Evil (Bd. I. 3, cf. note in 
S. B. E. vol. 5, pp. 3-4; and the reference given above, Bd. IV. 1 
and 2), and Cumont accepts this as originally the view of Mithra, 
that is that the Avesta, according to its earliest tradition identi- 
fied Mithra with Ahriman. (cf. Darmesteter’s Ormazd et Ahriman, 
p. 328 n. 38, from which Cumont borrows the suggestion. I have 
not had access 'to this book.) But this lands us in no less con- 
fusion, so far as the subsequent idea of Mithra in the Mysteries 
is concerned, a fact quite evident to Cumont, for he says: “Should 
we believe that the priests of Mithra recount the same myth in 
substituting for Ahriman their chief divinity as the author of 
the saving trespass? <A strange detail which is repeated on 
nearly all the monuments, makes doubt impossible: the tail of 
the dying animal is decorated with grains of wheat!” (T. et M., 
I. 184). 

The only explanation Cumont offers for this startling substitu- 
tion is the one suggested by Darmesteter’s note, that a tradition 
grew up that final deliverance was to come through Saoshant (cf. 
Ys. XLV. 11) and that the conception of Mithra was fused with 
that of “The Deliverer.” (vide et. Moulton’s note, HZ. Z. p. 310, 
where the Zoroastrian identification of Saoshant with the ex- 
pected son of Zoroaster is mentioned.) 

The only point in which this theory resembles that of Moulton 
is in preserving the connection of Mithra with the slaying of the 
bull, so prominent in the Mithraic monuments, and clinging to the 
primitive idea that restoration (and if the myth of Yima be in- 
cluded, immortality) shall come through the death of the bull 
(and the eating of his flesh). 

Now it seems to me conceivable that the Magi might for good 
and sufficient reason substitute their divinity for a Parsee devil, 
in whom they did not believe, but it is hard to imagine why they 
should substitute one devil for another! The simplest explana- 
tion, and one which all the evidence will support, seems to me 


The Pagan Mysteries 135 


origin, or was the peculiar contribution of the Magi,*! it 





to be that what Zoroaster tried to banish from his cult was the 
worship of the primeval Bull, a nature deity which he could not 
countenance, and that he represented the sin of Yima as having 
been the rite of eating the bull’s flesh. (An interesting parallel 
to Genesis and Adam’s fall is suggested by the fact that origi- 
nally Yima is thought to have been the “first man.” vide Dar- 
mesteter’s Introduc. to vol. 4 of S. B. HE. p. Ixxv.) But after 
Zoroaster’s death the old cult reappeared, and against it the 
Magi, who influenced the latter parts of the Avesta, had to con- 
tend. This they did as I have suggested above. by simply ac- 
cepting in toto the myth of the death of the bull, with all its 
blessed fertilizing results, but making their Sun-deity the slayer, 
and combining with their solar deity the primitive Mithra of the 
Vault-of-heaven, or perchance Rain, as the case may be. 


A further advantage to this explanation is that it gives us the 
key to the interpretation of the Mystic Meal of Mithra, in the 
later Mysteries, since it would in some way represent the old 
idea of eating the bull’s flesh. Cumont’s explanation of this 
“sacramental meal” seems to me very unsatisfactory (though 
this would not alone constitute a valid objection against it), but 
this is not the place to go further into details, our discussion 
having already reached too great length for a note. (For Cu- 
mont’s explanation, which is that they commemorate a banquet 
of Mithra and the Sun, and that it was, in some sense which is 
not made very plain, “opposed to the last supper in memory of 
which the Christian sacrament was celebrated.” vide M. of ne 
p. 160; 7. et M.1., pp. 175-176.) 

41 Moulton contends that this was “heresy” in Zoroastrianism, 
and that the introduction of Ahriman was the work of the Magi. 
(vide HE. Z., p. 129 ff.) It is usually considered a part of Zo- 
roaster’s own doctrine. In either case, it is peculiar to the 
Magi, as such, and comes directly into Mithraism. In the Mith- 
raic Mysteries, there were offerings to the god of the under- 
world, as Plutarch suggests. (cf. Cumont, Orien. Religs., p. 153, 
and 7. et M., I. 189 ff.; Moulton, #. Z. p. 127). Schrader (in 
Encyc. Relig. and Eth., II., pp. 11 ff.) discusses the presence of 
belief in spirits, magic, and the worship of the spirits of the de- 
parted. Perhaps it was this that Zoroaster opposed. But accord- 
ing to Moulton’s theory of the Magi, they were the aboriginal in- 
habitants of Media before the Aryan invasion, and they were the 


136 Sacraments and Society 


had a prominent place in the doctrinal side of the Mysteries 
of Mithra, and the exorcisms and rites for overcoming evil 
spirits which now became so prominent in all the cults of 
the Roman world are probably to be attributed to this source. 
We have found good reason to believe that such ideas are 
characteristic of primitivity, wherever it may be found, but 
its recrudescence in the Greco-Roman world, where the pro- 
gress of knowledge and culture had somewhat overcome it, 
is generally ascribed to the influx of the cults from the 
Orient, particularly from Iranean sources. 

Among the other cults which came from the Orient, per- 
haps the best known and most influential was that of the 
Magna Mater deum Idea, whose meteorite representation 
came from Pergamum to Rome, amid great rejoicing and 
much pomp, on the Nones of April in the year 204 B. C. 
But that the Roman populace had not been wholly fickle in 
their devotion to their old gods, in spite of the verdict of the 
Sibylline Books, is shown by the fact that even a century 
after the arrival of Cybele at Rome, the populace mobbed 
one of her priests who came from her ancient sanctuary at 
Pessinus, to Rome, seeking redress for a fancied insult to 
his goddess.*? But she was not doomed to perpetual seclusion 
within her temple on the Palatine, save for the annual com- 
memoration of the deliverance which her coming to Rome 
had wrought, for the Emperor Claudius, prompted, perhaps, 
by the example of his predecessor Caligula in sanctioning the 
Mysteries of Isis, granted official recognition to the Great 
Mother, and her rites were henceforth celebrated “officially” 
with great solemnity.*? 





source of this ethical dualism, and had, besides, as their peculiar 
possession, magic, astrology, divination by dreams (oneiromancy) 
and the doctrine of the malignity of both planets and mountains, 
(op. cit. p. xi). 

42 Diodorus XXXVI 6; Plutarch, Marius 17; vide Orien. Religs. 
p. 62. 

43 On the Cybele-Attis cult vide Showerman, G., The Great 


The Pagan Mysteries 137 


From Syria, sometime in the early part of the second 
century before Christ, came another goddess, who, though 
she came into the Latin world as perhaps the sole precious 
possession of Oriental slaves, was destined to play an im- 
portant part in the religious life of Rome under the patronage 
of the Caesars—Atargatis, commonly known simply as the 
“Syrian Goddess.” ** Our chief interest in her cult is that it 
was intimately connected with the Chaldaei or fortune-tellers, 
who popularized the Chaldean astrology throughout the Ro- 
man dominions. From Babylon, through devious ways, no 
doubt, and mediated by the deities of Syria and Phoenicia, 
came new conceptions of deity and of a life after death, in 
the realms of the celestial beings among the stars.*° 

We have enumerated very briefly the most important of 
the foreign deities that invaded the Greco-Roman world, and 
no one of them had failed to find a foot-hold there before the 
Christian era. Without exception their cults were “mys- 
teries” or religions of redemption, and offered to the initiate 
salvation from the trials and sorrows of this world, in a 
blessed life to come. As we have already seen, most of the 


Mother of the Gods (Madison, 1901); Hepding, H., Attis, seine 
Mythen und sein Kult (Giessen, 1903). Other references will be 
found in Case, op. cit., p. 302. ; 

44 ,ittle is known of her antecedents or her rites. The only 
important sources are a short description by Lucian, based on a 
novel by Lucius of Patras, and a portion of the eighth book of 
Apuleius’ Metamorphosis. The slave revolt in Sicily in 134 B. C. 
was started by a devotee of the Syrian Goddess, and her early 
association with the slaves is testified by an inscription of the 
first century of our era, which mentions the slave market at 
Rome. (C. I. L., VI. 399). 

45 cf, Cumont’s long note on the Babylonian origin of this con- 
ception, Orien. Religs. p. 253, n. 64; and his Astrology and RKe- 
ligion among the Greeks and Romans. (N. Y. 1912), esp. chaps. 
3 and 4. The elevated character of the Syrian doctrines is re- 
ferred to by Hippolytus, Ref. Haeres. V. 11, 7 and Origen. Contra 
Cels. I. 12. 


138 Sacraments and Society 


Greek Mysteries had lost their hold on the people even be- 
fore the rise of Roman dominion. Demeter and Dionysus 
continued to hold their sway, but they had to compete with 
Isis, and by the beginning of the second century there was a 
seething multitude of religious devotees, some of them the 
votaries of several deities at once. It was into such a world 
that St. Paul went preaching the Gospel of the risen Jesus.*® 

As might be expected from the secret character of the 
Mysteries, we know very little of their peculiar rites. There 
is a considerable fund of information concerning the more 
public ceremonies of the rites of Eleusis and the Isis Mys- 
teries, but for the esoteric rites of these cults we are almost 
wholly dependent upon Christian authorities. Since the in- 
formation they give us is found, for the most part in polemi- 
cal treatises directed against these same “false” religions, and 
was probably obtained from converts who had renounced 
their errors, it is probably not free from prejudice. 

From Theon of Smyrna, however, we have a brief sum- 
mary of the essential elements of the Mysteries, which, 
though he writes in the second century A. D., can probably 
be trusted.47 There are four or perhaps five separate parts, 
as follows: 


46 How, in the face of the evidence here assembled, the late 
Dean Groton could have said: ‘‘the Mystery-religions did not be- 
gin their development until the second century of our era, nor 
did they attain their great influence until a later date,’ I can not 
understand. No doubt he used words of sweeping import, intend- 
ing them to apply only to his immediate question as to whether 
or not the ideas of the Christian Eucharist were “borrowed” 
from the pagan Mysteries. I agree with him that they did not 
originate in the pagan Mysteries, but, as I think we shall soon 
‘see, the sacramental idea itself came from a source earlier than 
the pagan Mysteries. (cf. Groton W. M. “Vhe Christian Eucha- 
rist and the Pagan Cults. (N. Y., 1914), p. 106.). 

47 Mathemat. i. (ed. Bull, p. 18). I take this from Cheetham, 
S., The Mysteries Pagan and Christian (London, 1897), pp. 99 
and 145, n. 61. Theon was a Greek philosopher, writing a treat- 


The Pagan Mysteries 139 


1. xaddeuos (or xéPagoig)—the preliminary purification. 
(To this, or next in order, Gardner adds ovotactc—the rites 
and sacrifices preparatory to the actual celebration.) 


2. tis tehetij¢ magddooig—the tradition of the “symbol” 
or actual secrets of initiation (also called winots).* 


3. énonteta—the full vision (or highest grade, generally 
as at Eleusis, after a year, at least). 


4. A weaving and crowning with sacred garlands, which 
completes the epopteia, and prepares for further promotion 
to sacred office. 


5. sevdatrovic—the blessedness of union. 


The purpose of the initiation, though this we have already 
insisted upon, was to bring about an intimate union between 
the votary and the deity,*® and to confer, by this means the 
gift of immortality. This immortality was symbolized, if 
not actually begun, by the “new birth’? which constituted the 
sole purpose of the primitive tribal initiations, and passed on, 


ise on mathematics, and was probably as unprejudiced as any 
one to whom we might refer. A similar analysis of the mystic 
rites is to be found in Gardner, P., New Chapters of Greek His- 
tory CN: Y.;/ 1892), pp: 381 ‘ff. 


48 For a full note on the use of the words teletat uvotnoi 
and dovt ta, see Cheetham, op. cit., pp. 135-138. “We may say that 
in the words yvotyjoiw doy tekstat we have the leading 
characteristics of the Mysteries—secrecy, emotion, and edifica- 
tion.” (ibid. p. 187). cf. Farnell, Cults, IIT. 127. 

49 “Theological myths suit the philosophers, physical and psy- 
chic suit poets, mixed suit religious initiations, since every initi- 
ation aims at uniting us with the World and the Gods.” (Sal- 
lustius, De Deis et Mundo, 4, Murray’s trans., vide Four Stages 
of Greek Religion (N. Y., 1912), p. 191.) 

The “principle,” if we may so call it, which underlies the 
Mysteries, is the one which we have seen prompted primitive 
magic and characterizes all primitive thought, that all life is 
one. cf. Cornford, op. cit., pp. 111-112. 


140 Sacraments and Society 


from stage to stage, into the more elaborate forms of initia- 
tion in the Mystery religions.®° 





50 “All that we have learned from anthropology bearing on this 
matter is that most savages possess some kind of initiation- 
ritual and some kind of religious or dramatic show; the same 
is true of most advanced religions, and we may maintain that 
there is a generic resemblance between the lowest and the high- 
est religions of the world. But it would be rash and futile to ar- 
gue that therefore the observation of the Australian ‘Bora’ can 
interpret for us the incidents of the Elusinian drama, and all 
the religious emotions and conceptions thereto attaching. Prob- 
ably the spectacle of a medieval passion play would be more to 
the purpose; and if, after a careful review of the evidence, we 
wish to gain for our imagination a warm and vital perception of 
the emotions inspired by the Eleusinian spectacle we probably 
should do better to consult some Christian experiences than the 
folklore of Australia though we will welcome any new light from 
this or any other quarter of the world when it comes. Meantime, 
on our present information, we can pronounce the central mys- 
tery of Greece innocent of totemism, cannibalism, human sacri- 
fice, or of any orgiastic or ‘matriarchal excess.” (Farnell, Cults, 
III 129). 

“Reincarnation (moAvyyeveota) is, I venture to think, no 
mystical doctrine propounded by a particular and eccentric 
sage (i.e. Empedocles) nor yet is it a chance, even if wide- 
spread, error into which independently in various parts of the 
world men have fallen. Rather, it is, I believe, a stage in the 
development of thinking through which men naturally and 
necessarily pass, it is a form of collective or group thought, and, 
as such, it is a usual and almost necessary concomitant of 
totemism.” (Harrison, Themis, p. 271.) 

For a discussion of “rebirth” in initiation ceremonies, vide 
Dieterich, A., Hine Mithrasliturgie (Leip., 2d. ed. 1910), pp., 
157-178. (The relation of this “magical papyrus” to Mithra is, 
however, to be doubted; cf. Cumont, Orien. Religs. p. 260; Case, 
op cit., p. 329.) Reitzenstein, in Archiv fiir Religionswissen, 
schaft, VII (1904), pp. 406 ff., of which Cumont says: “These are 
perhaps the most striking pages written on the meaning of the 
ceremony.” (Orien. Religs., p. 238, n. 83). Reinach, S., in Revue 
Archeologique, 3e. Série, XXXIX. (1901), pp. 202 ff., for dis- 
cussion of the Dionysus rites. 


The Pagan Mysteries 141 


Though there were many separate mystery cults, they all 
possess the same general characteristics, and all sought the 
same end.®* And they were reputed to be of high moral value 
in their day and generation. The Christians fulminated 
against them, and for political reasons they were sometimes 
persecuted, as was Christianity itself, but the philosophers 





“These men the goddess (i.e. Isis) by her providence brings to 
a new birth and places once more at the start of a new race for 
life.’ (Apuleius, Metam. XI. 21). 

“Wor the gates of hell and the power of life are in the hands 
of the goddess, and the very act of dedication is regarded as a 
voluntary death and an imperilling of life, etc.’ (ibid). ? 

Harnack (Hist. of Dogma, Eng. trans., (Boston, 7 vols., 1894- 
1900), III. 164) says “deification’” was characteristic of Greek 
thought, in the sense of imperishableness, and speaks of it as 
“brought to an edifying end” by St. Augustine, cf. supra what 
Miss Harrison says of Orphism. 


51 “The various Mysteries differed widely from each other, but 
certain general characteristics may be traced in all. All required 
‘some kind of preparation and purification before admission; in 
all there were Aey OuEvo. and Setxvuueva or Soampevar words spo- 
ken and actions exhibited; in all it seems certain that an alle- 
goric exposition was given of dramatized story of some deity or 
deities.” (Cheetham, op. cit. p. 61). Here we find exemplified 
in the Mysteries the original use of the “myth” to which we have 
devoted a previous chapter. 

On the growth of the secret character of the Mysteries, which 
accompanies the general break-up of social solidarity or “partici- 
pation” and which we have already noticed as evidenced in the 
emergence of religious societies among primitive peoples, vide 
Themis, pp. 54-55. 

“Lobeck (Aglaophamus, p. 47) compares the feelings of the 
newly initiated to those of the young Protestant Mortimer, in 
Schiller’s Maria Stuart, when he was present for the first time 
at a stately act of Roman Catholic worship, in which, in 


die leuchtende Verklarung, 
Das Herrlichste, das Héchste gegenwartig 
Vor den entzuckten Sinnen sich bewegte.’ ”’ 
(Cheetham, op. cit., p. 138, n. 20.) 


142 Sacraments and Society 


and educated men in general bore testimony to their ethical 
and religious value. *? 

It would be natural that the best features in these Mystery 
religions should be brought forward under the stress of their 
competition—not to say conflict—with Christianity, and such 
seems to have been the case. The pagan Mysteries reached 
their zenith during the second century and then sank rapidly 
to the nadir from which there is no rising. In most cases 
there is no formal record of their fall, but Jerome writing 
in 403 could say “already the Egyptian Serapis has been 
made Christian” and refer to the destruction of “the grotto 
of Mithras and all the dreadful images therein,®* and in the 
Ecclesiastical History of Socrates ** we find a distinct refer- 
ence to the destruction of the Serapeum at Alexandria, “the 
very head of idolatry” as Rufinus called it,5° and together 
with it a ruined grotto, once sacred to Mithra, but which 
“had long been abandoned to neglect and filth.” Here and 
there in the literature of subsequent periods there is some 
reference to the persistency of some distinctly pagan rite, 
but gradually they have disappeared.°® What has become 


52 For numerous references vide Case, op. cit., pp. 290-297. The 
Mysteries laid a growing emphasis on the individual, and paid 
little heed to the public interest, as such. For this reason the 
gods of Egypt were driven out of Rome by Augustus and Tiberi- 
us; for the worship of the Roman gods was a civic duty, which 
the personal devotion of individuals to the foreign deities tended 
to disregard. (cf. Orien. Religs., pp. 39, 44). 

A brief reference to the influence of the Mysteries in Apostolic 
times is given by Scott-Holland, H., The Apostolic Fathers, (Lon- 
don, n. d.), pp. 30-32. 

53 Jerome, Hp. 107. 

54 Socrates, Eccl. Hist., III. 2; V. 16; cf. Sozomen V. 7. 

55 Rufinus, II. 24. “A miniature from an Alexandrian chronicle 
shows the patriarch Theophilus, crowned with a halo, stamping 
the Serapeum under foot.” (Cumont, Orien. Religs., p. 232. n. 32, 
q. Vv.) 

56 As late as 394 the Isis processions in Rome were described 


The Pagan Mysteries 143 


of them? They are no longer pagan, but many of them have 
their counterparts in such folk-customs as some of those we 
have enumerated in previous chapters, and some of them 


find their counterparts in the Christian rites and festivals 
which displaced them. 


by an eye-witness (vide Orien. Religs., p. 232, n. 31; cf. T. et M. 
II. 52, and for texts referred to in n. 54 supra, T. et M. II. 44-45.) 

The car of the goddess Cybele was drawn on an ox-cart through 
the fields and vineyards of Autun, even during the fourth cen- 
tury, according to Gregory of Tours, who was Archbishop at the 
end of the sixth century. (De Glor. Confess. 76.) 


x 
THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 


THE question as to whether or not Christianity was in- 
fluenced by the pagan Mystery religions has provoked an 
ever-widening discussion and much has been written on both 
sides of the subject. The difficulties which surround the 
subject are innumerable, but the greatest difficulty of them 
all lies, not in the lack of material from: which to draw our 
conclusion, but in the fact that religion is so intimately re- 
lated to our most cherished sentiments that calm judgment 
finds it difficult to weigh the evidence.t Were the subject 
under discussion something other than religion, were it medi- 
cine or weapons of war for instance, we should all be dis- 
posed to admit the reasonableness of an hypothesis, at least, 
that each generation had gathered and incorporated the 
achievements of the past in its own practice, though of course 
its theories and speculations would always outrun the more 
slow-footed and cautious progeny of the past, tradition and 
habit. In fact it is difficult to imagine any other way in 
which change or progress could take place. 

And so it is hard to understand how a religion that was to 
succeed in the Mediterranean during the first century of our 
era could do so without taking up into itself all that was good 


1 The trouble with much that is written on both sides is that 
it consists so largely in special pleading, or argumenta ad homt- 
nem. Perhaps it is hardly fair to criticise, but by way of illus- 
tration only, I may mention, Friedlander’s Hellenism and Chris- 
tianity and Groton’s The Christian Hucharist and the Pagan 
Cults. On the different types of opinion, with references to the 
literature vide Case, op. cit., pp. 185-192. 


144 


The Christian Mysteries 145 


in the systems of its competitors. Christianity might raise 
men’s ideals and give them a new conception of life and sal- 
vation, but it could not alter the mode of thought in vogue at 
the time, nor, save after a long and tedious process, trans- 
form the fundamental ideas and sentiments of its converts. 
The whole history of the early growth of the Christian 
community reflects the influence of the pagan background 
of the church’s life.2_ But “we may say at once that the early 
Christian’s took nothing consciously from the pagan Mys- 
teries.2.* 

The gospel according to St. Mark, which is generally ad- 
mitted to be the oldest, makes the baptism of Jesus in the 
waters of the Jordan, “the beginning of the gospel,” so it 
may be truly said that Christianity began with a rite. * It may 
be objected that the preaching of John was anterior to the 
baptism of Jesus, and that the gospel of Mark begins with 
the preaching of the Forerunner, but it is nevertheless true 
that what John preached was “the baptism of repentance 
unto the remission of sins,” and the burden of his message 
was that the coming One would baptize, not in water but with 
the Holy Spirit.2 So far as Mark alone is concerned, The 
Baptist has no other message to give, and his sole function, 
according to the view of the third gospel, is to introduce the 
baptism of Jesus. And the one essential feature of this bap- 
tism, in which the Synoptists all agree, is that at this time 
the Spirit, “as a dove,” descended upon Him who was called 
the beloved Son.” ® 


2vide Wood, H. G.. in Hasting’s Hncyc. of Relig. and Ethics, 
sub voce “Baptism” p. 397. 

3 Cheetham, op. cit., p. 78. For a comparison of the “general 
tone and influence” of the pagan and Christian rites vide ibid. pp. 
119-27. 

4 Mark 1:9. 

5 ibid. vv. 4-8. 

6 The same conception seems to be evident in the words of the 
Apostle Peter, when he tells Cornelius that God had “anointed 


146 Sacraments and Society 


Baptism was a rite of purification familiar to the Jews, 
and it passed naturally into the Christian practice, but what- 
ever may have been the significance of John’s baptism at the 
time, by the time that the third gospel and the book of Acts 
were written, it was looked upon as quite distinct from the 
strictly Christian rite, for which, in some cases, it supplied 
a fitting preparation.” It seems altogether likely that the 
Lord did not himself administer baptism at all, but his final 
commission to his disciples was that they should go out into 
the world and do so, and the first activity of the newly 
founded Church shows the Apostles administering baptism 
in obedience to his command. 


him with the Holy Spirit and with power,” after the baptism 
which John preached: jig oldate TO yevduevov ona xad 
dkys tis “Iovdatacs, doEdusvov axd ths Dodtatas, peta tO 
Bantioua 6 exnovEev "Iwavvys, “Inootv tov and Nalagét ws 
éyotoev avtov 6 Osdg IIvevuat. “Ayio nal duvduet, %.7.A. 
(Acts 10:37 and 38). But see next note. 

7e.g., Acts 19:3-5. What had transpired in the meantime we 
have no means of knowing, but it is important to remember that 
between the actual baptism of Jesus and the date of the record, 
at least forty years had elapsed in the case of the third gospel 
and nearly seventy before the Acts were written. It is quite 
possible that for the Baptist, or even for Jesus himself, the bap- 
tism had been related to the Messianic Judgment, for which it 
was to be a purification. But for the early church, after the 
death of its Lord, baptism was an initiation into a new social 
order, and constituted a new birth. 

8 John 3:22 and 4:2 seem to be contradictory, but there is no 
other reference to any baptising, even by the disciples. There is 
little reason to suppose that Christian baptism began till the 
day of the Pentecost. (cf. Acts. 2:38, 41). 

This question was hotly debated in the early church. Augus- 
tine held that Christ had baptized all the Apostles (Hp. 163); 
Clement of Alexandria that he baptized only Peter (Strom. 3); 
Tertullian (De Bap. 2) and Chrystom (Hom, 28, in Joan.) argue 
with what seems perfect logic, that if the disciples did baptize 
before Whitsunday, the rite did not confer the Holy Spirit. 


The Christian Mysteries 147 


Baptism was considered so essential that even the Apostle 
Paul received it, in spite of the peculiar character of his 
“conversion” and Peter administered it to Cornelius the 
centurion and his household, in spite of the fact that they 
had already shown signs of being filled with the Spirit.° In 
the case of the Samaritan converts, Peter made a special trip 
from Jerusalem to “lay his hands on them’ ?° but there is 
no mention of this rite in the subsequent account of his ex- 
perience at Caesarea. It was only to be expected, however, 
that there would be some lack of uniformity in the use of 
these rites at first, for there were no precedents to follow, 
and each separate case constituted a new problem. But it is 
interesting to find that the earliest records make the church 
err (if at all) on the side of the use rather than the omission 
of the rite, as in the case of the departure of St. Paul on his 
first missionary journey, when he and his companion Barna- 
bas were sent forth after another ceremonial imposition of 
hands.*+ A similar rite of laying on of hands seems to have 


9 Acts 9:18; and 10:47, 48. The emphasis on the necessity of 
baptism and its peculiar effects, in the writings of St. Paul, is 
somewhat overlooked. In 1 Cor. 1:13-17 it is the transformation 
worked by baptism “into the name of Jesus’ which is the founda- 
tion argument. The gospel which he preached was the new- 
birth in the Spirit through baptism, and this could not come 
through any “other name.” And again in Gal. 3:3-5 the ques- 
tion is how did the Galatians receive the Spirit, and though it is 
not answered in so many words, it is certainly not by the works 
of the law, nor by the hearing of faith, but it was in the rite of 
baptism. 

10 Acts 8:14 ff. 

11 Acts 13:3. The first extension of the ministry of the church, 
by the choice of the seven so-called “deacons” was formally indi- 
cated by the use of the old and familiar ceremony of the imposi- 
tion of hands (ibid. 6:6). Whether or not it conveyed the im- 
pression of imparting by contact a mystic power which was be- 
lieved to be the possession of the Apostles, this piece of ritual 
was a familiar symbol of blessing and the conferring of authority, 


148 Sacraments and Society 


been associated, from the first, with the administration of 
baptism, though in some sense distinct from the actual bap- 
tism itself, and supplementary to it. It is first mentioned in 
connection with the visit of Peter and John to Samaria, in 
the account of which we have the testimony of Simon the 
Sorcerer, himself skilled in works of “magic,” that, in 
reality, “through the laying on of the Apostles’ hands the 
Holy Spirit was given.” 1 It appears again as being admin- 
istered by St. Paul to those converts who had not heard that 
the Holy Spirit existed, and here again the explicit statement 
is made that the Spirit came “when Paul had laid his hands 
upon them.” 18 

There appear, then to have been at least two uses of this 
rite of the “laying on of hands” in the practice of the 
Church, as recorded in the Acts, and in the subsequent his- 


and it appears to have continued to be associated with appoint- 
ment to any “office or administration” in the church. 

We find here, also the association of fasting with a formal rite. 
Fasting is associated with the ritual of purification in all ethnic 
religions, and especially with the pagan Mysteries; e.g., “for ten 
consecutive days to abstain from all pleasures of the table, to 
eat no living thing, and to drink no wine.” (Apuleius, Metam. 
xi. 23.) 

12 Acts 8:18. What Simon did not realize was that this power 
was not a personal privilege, but an official prerogative reserved 
to the “overseers” of the new society. The statement in v. 21 
ovx Eott cot Egle OVSE xATOOS Ev TH Adyw tovtTw is quite inde- 
pendent of what follows. This rite seems to have been reserved, 
from the first, to the Apostles, as the chief ministers of the 
Church. The whole problem of its subsequent separation from 
baptism, and its elaboration as a separate rite is a very compli- 
cated one, but certainly one influence which must have led to 
some relaxation of this restriction was the growth and spread of 
the Church beyond the immediate personal contact of the Apos- 
tles. Another cause of some measure of change must have been 
the introduction of the custom of infant baptism, but of this we 
will speak later. 

18 Acts 19:6. 


The Christian Mysteries 149 


tory of the Church one of these came to be called Ordina- 
tion, the other Confirmation. As the Gospel began with a 
rite, so the extension of its ministry began with a rite, and 
the earliest converts +* from paganism were admitted to the 
fellowship of the Church by another and supplementary rite. 


The first open contention within the Church broke out 
over a question of the use of rites, with a kindred question 
of purity or “taboo.” The question of clean and unclean 
had threatened to cause a breach in the community on Peter’s 
return to Jerusalem after his visit to Joppa and Casearea, but 
he had succeeded in quieting the scruples of the brethren 
who were “of the circumcision.” +> Now, however, the dis- 
pute had broken out afresh, and the issue had to be faced 
and settled, once for all, so it was carried to a council of the 
authorities of the Church, at Jerusalem. 


Whatever other questions may have complicated the issue, 
in its baldest terms it was a conflict between the initiation rite 
of the Jewish Law, and the initiation rite of the Gospel. Was 
the new rite to displace the old, or were they both to be ob- 
served? This was the main question.1*° We must not over- 
look the significance of this perfectly patent fact, that the 
first recorded dispute within the Christian Church, the first 
that was deemed weighty enough to require the summoning 
of a formal conference of “the apostles and elders,” had 
nothing to do with doctrine or with morals, except inci- 
dentally, and in so far as both grew out of the primary ques- 
tion of the use of a rite. The outcome of the discussion was 
the decision—if we accept the text as it stands—that for 
Gentile converts, who would not otherwise be circumcised, 
this Jewish rite should not be considered incumbent. It was 


14Cornelius may have been a _ proselyte, but evidently 
from the account of Philip’s labors, his converts were Samaritans. 


15 Acts 11:2-18. 
16 ibid. 15:1-6. 


150 Sacraments and Society 


decided, once for all, that the Christian Church has its own 
rite of initiation, independent of the Law of Moses, and 
that no other rite shall be required for admission to its mem- 
bership. But, as so often happens in “conventions,” the main 
issue seems to have gotten side-tracked, and most of the dis- 
cussion was given up to the consideration of the subsidiary 
question of purity. This is of interest to us here, becatse 
we have already seen that initiation rites signify a new birth, 
and as soon as they have developed away from the very 
primitive form, and the social group has given place to the 
voluntary society, the question of purity always forges to the 
front. So it seems as though it were partly as a concession to 
Jewish sentiment, which still governed those members of the 
new society who had been reared under the Law,'” and 





17 The connection between the main question of initiation, and 
the subsidiary question of purity, seems to me to be found in 
verse 9, where Peter says “he made no distinction between us 
and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.” It may be quite pos- 
sible that the reason for the uncertainty of the text of the “De- 
crees” and the presence of a double tradition lies in the fact that 
the very primitive character of the restrictions has been over- 
looked. There can be no doubt that “evil spirits” and “impurity” 
were conceived of by everyone at this period in a very ‘“ma- 
terial” way. They were substantial. The dispute over the use 
of contending rites would almost necessarily force the discus- 
sion back of the rites themselves to the more fundamental ques- 
tions on which they rested, and the purpose, par excellence of all 
rites of initiation had for generations been purification. 

Instead of comparing texts and traditions, to decide whether 
the Alexandrian tradition of a “food law” or the African tradi- 
tion of a “moral law’ forbidding the “deadly sins’ was original, 
would we not get nearer the truth if we stopped to ask how it 
could ever have been possible for two traditions, apparently so 
contradictory, at first sight, to have originated? And the answer 
to this question seems to me to lie on the face of the account, 
so plainly evident that the textual scholars, who have busied 
themselves with manuscripts and “traditions” have failed to see 
it. It is the primitive question of taboo, of impurity and how 
to avoid it. 


The Christian Mysteries Thi 


partly from their inherited conviction, which could not sud- 
denly be overcome, that these particular things were danger- 
ously contaminated and full of that mysterious power which 
we have seen has always attached itself to blood, that it was 
also decided to require of the Gentile converts that they ab- 
stain from certain unclean things. And thus a concession 
was made to those who had wished to have circumcision in- 
sisted upon, but in the final verdict, the whole matter of the 
rite 1s left out, and though what appears to be an observance 
of the Jewish Law, is required, the rite of baptism is left the 
only means of entering the Church. 


Whether we accept the “three text’ form of the tradition or 
the “four text” from the TJextus Receptus, the thought which 
underlies them both is impurity, and we are prone to forget that 
the conception of moral evil is a comparatively late one, as the 
age of religion itself goes. Behind the question of idolatry lies 
the idea of evil spirits which get into things. If this conception 
did not still linger on in the Church, long after the Council at 
Jerusalem, why should St. Paul have to deal with it? What does 
he mean when he writes to the Corinthians “concerning things 
‘sacrificed to idols—if any man thinketh that he knoweth any- 
thing, he knoweth it not yet as he ought to know?” (1 Cor. 
8:1-2) “The communion with demons’ comes through eating 
things in which the demons are, and it is not the idols, which 
are nothing, but the evil spirits which are a reality, that count. 
(cf. ibid. 10:18-21.) St. Paul urges another view which denies 
the inherent evil of anything, and declares that the Kingdom of 
God does not consist in the observance of any set rules of ab- 
stinence, but the conception of union with God through eating 
of the sacrifice is too dear to his Jewish heart for him to deny 
that similia causa one would be contaminated by eating “things 
sacrificed to idols.” (Rom. 14:14ff.) 

If this really be the intention of the decrees, it is no longer 
necessary to insist that “fornication” is a later addition, for from 
time immemorial sexual relations have been the stronghold of 
taboo, and if, as the scholars tell us, the ascetic ideal came from 
Persia, where the doctrine of ethical dualism seems to have had 
its origin, it is not at all unlikely that the fear of contamination 
through contact with woman had a powerful influence in form- 


152 Sacraments and Society 


There is no clear evidence of the use of any other rites in 
the New Testament, with the exception of the Eucharist, 
which we shall soon consider, though there are hints of 
those other rites which gradually assumed a place of import- 
ance in the life of the Church and finally came to be called 
Sacraments. 

One of these is Matrimony, though it was many years be- 
fore it was numbered as one of the sacraments. The classic 
passage to which appeal is always made in support of the 
sacramental view of marriage is found in the epistle to the 
Ephesians.1® St. Paul says: “For this cause shall a man 
leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; 
and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; 
but I speak in regard of Christ and of the Church.” These 
are enigmatic words, and we can only hope to understand 
them by interpreting them in the light of the teaching of the 
epistle on the equally difficult subject of “the body” of the 
faithful.1° But our chief interest in the passage is not its 


ing the sentiment which led to the renunciation of the married 
life. The fear of the mysterious, the primitive concept of mana, 
which developed either into the sacred or the impure, is at work 
here, and we see its evidence in the view which the Romans held 
of the menstruous flow, which was both marvelous and deadly, 
(Pliny, Hist. Nat., VII. 64.) The same conception underlies the 
prohibitions of the Levitical Code, (cf. inter alia Lev. 12) and has 
passed over into the Christian Church in the rite of “The 
Churching of Women” in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. 
This very idea of the peculiarly impure property of menstruous 
blood gives the point to a simile of Isaiah’s which a puritanic 
rationalism has “revised” out of its reason. (Isa. 30:22.) 

On the whole subject of “taboo” vide Crawley, E. The Mystic 
Rose (N. Y., 1902), esp. chaps. 8 and 9, “Sexual Relations;” but 
the “magical” is stressed by him a little too much. 


is Eph. 5:31-32. 

19 The word body (oma; 3:6=ooomua) occurs ten times in 
the first five, of the six, chapters of the epistle, and of the twenty- 
eight times that the word LVOTIOLOV occurs in the New Testa- 


The Christian Mysteries 153 


exegesis, except in so far as the use of the word “mystery” 
is concerned, for the earliest comprehensive term applied to 
the sacred rites of the Church was this same word “mystery” 
and our word sacrament is only a substitute for it. The ar- 
gument which would prove that marriage is a sacrament rests 
on this use of the word mystery and runs thus: mystery 
means sacrament; marriage is here called a mystery; ergo 
matriage is a sacrament. As the rest of our time will be 
given to a consideration of the way in which certain rites 
came to be regarded as Sacraments, let us pause for a mo- 
ment in our discussion of matrimony to consider the origin 
and significance of this word sacrament. We have become 
so used to hearing of the Christian Sacraments, that few 
people ever stop to ask where they came from. The common 
answer to such a question, if one asks a Protestant, is that 





ment six of them occur here. There can be no doubt that some 
“Mystic” meaning is intended. The “mystery” is primarily 
something hidden and secret, though also mysterious and dan- 
gerous. The whole context of the epistle convinces me that life 
is the great mystery of which the Apostle writes, and that he is 
drawing a parallel between our physical life and birth and the 
mystic new-birth in the Church and the life of the Spirit. It is 
the mystery of procreation, probably, to which he refers. “Hus- 
bands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, 
and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having 
cleansed it’—not as we might expect, by his blood, but—‘“by the 
washing of water with the word,” (i.e., the laver of rebirth) 
“that he might present the Church to himself * * * holy and with- 
out blemish.” * * * (as Christ cherishes the Church, which is his 
mystical body through this union, so—) “for this cause shall a 
man * * * cleave to his wife, &c.” This seems to me to be the 
sense of the passage, and the expression “for the husband is the 
head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the Church” (v. 23), 
when compared with the similar expression in 4:15-16 and Col. 
2:19, points to the same conclusion, since in both the emphasis 
is on the “increase of the body.” (For the view that it means a 
“mystic deification” vide Leitzman, H., Handb. zum H. T., III 2, 
in loco. 


154 Sacraments and Society 


they were given to the Church by Christ, and are to be found 
in the New Testament; but he will be referring to only two 
rites, Baptism and Lord’s Supper. The Catholic, however, 
numbers seven sacraments, all of which, according to the 
teaching of the Catholic Church, were “instituted” by Christ, 
though he did not prescribe all the details of their adminis- 
tration.*° The difference between the Catholic and the Pro- 
testant view of the sacraments does not consist in attributing 
them to a different authority, but in a disagreement as to 
their number, and a divergent interpretation of their signifi- 
cance. The worship of both Catholic and Protestant Chris- 
tians has always centered round the use of these sacred rites, 
and they agree in the use of the term sacrament to describe 
them. 

As is generally the case with names, the name sacrament 
was applied to certain rites which had long existed, and it 
was intended to describe the peculiar character these rites 
had come to possess. The English word sacrament may be 
said to be the creation of the Church, and it has no other 
significance or application than these Christian rites.24 It 
came directly from the Latin word sacramentum, which Ter- 
tullian had applied to Baptism and the Eucharist, about the 
year 200 A. D., using it as equivalent to the Greek word 
uvonotov (mystery) which has always been the word 
employed by Greek speaking Christians, and which we have 
found not only in the New Testament, but in use for cen- 
turies to indicate the pagan cults.?* It is not absolutely cer- 


20 Council of Trent, Sess. 7. 

21 The dictionaries give no other meaning, though they some- 
times refer to the original meaning of its Latin original or re- 
late it to the word “mysteries.” 

22 For the use of the word sacramentum vide Lupton’s edition 
of Tertullian’s De Baptismo (Cambridge, 1908), p. 1; Harper’s 
Dict. of Class. Lit. and Antig. (N. Y. 1897), p. 1395; Harnack, 
Hist. of Dogma (Boston, 1894-1900), I. 206 ff.; II. 140; IV. 202 ff; 
The Mission and Expansion of Xty. (N. Y., 1908), 2nd. ed., I, 
416-417. 


The Christian Mysteries 155 


tain that this word is applied in the New Testament, to those 
rites which afterwards were called sacraments, but the usage 
of the Eastern Church, in the earliest extra-canonical writ- 
ings, suggests at least the possibility of such a significance. 
At any rate, if the word “mystery” does not refer to Baptism 
and the Eucharist in the New Testament, then there is no 





There was both a legal and a military use of the Latin term, 
and since the former had some connection with the Roman 
sacra, and Tertullian was a lawyer, it was generally supposed 
that this suggested his use of the term. But since the Christians 
were spoken of as milites the military oath by which the Roman 
soldier swore allegiance to his commander, or to the Emperor, is 
the more likely reason for the use of the term. The “Christian 
soldier” is still a familiar metaphor, and it has held its place 
through the centuries in the Baptismal service. The term “pagan” 
was a correlated term, borrowed from the barrack-room slang, in 
which all civilians were dubbed “rustics.” (cf. Bigg, Chas., The 
Origins of Christianity (Oxford, 1909), p. 98; Harnack, Miss. and 
Expan., I, 416. 

The identification of UVOTNOLOV with sacramentum which Ter- 
tullian established, was carried out in the Vulgate, where it is 
used seven times to translate the Greek word; (Dan. 2:18, 30, 47; 
 4:6=—Eng. 4:9; Tobit 12:7; Wis. 2:22; 6:24—UXX 6:22). The 

parallelism is emphasized by the use of mysteria in eight pas- 
sages (Judith 2:2; Ecclus. 22:27—LXX. 22:22; 27:24—LXxX. 
27:21: Dan’ 2:19, 27, 28, 29; and 2 Mac, 13:21). Of the other 
seven passages where the word Mvotnoetov appears in the LXX., 
two are omitted, and the other five are expressed by circumlocu- 
tion: Wisdom 14:15—sacra; 14:23—obscura sacrificia; Hcclus. 
27:17—LXX. 27:16—denudat arcana; 27:19=—LXX. 27:17—denud- 
averis, object omitted; 27:24—LXX. 27:21—denudari autem amici 
mysteria). It will be noticed that this last verse includes mys- 
teria, and is mentioned twice. So in Daniel 4:9 of the Hebrew 
and English, and 4:6 of the LXX. and Vulgate both words occur, 
and the parallellism is established thus: UVOTHOLOV=sacramen- 
tum=secret. 

The Greek word occurs in the Old Testament only nine times, 
all of which are in the book of Daniel, where it is used to trans- 
late the Hebrew word for secret. 

The word yyotijoiov occurs 28 times in the New Testament. 


156 Sacraments and Society 


generic term for them in the canonical writings, and the use 
of such a comprehensive term must be later than the New 
Testament. But here we are considering things, not merely 
the names for them, and we have already traced the presence 
of the rite of “Baptism-+Laying on of hands,” and we were 
discussing matrimony, when we made this digression to 
speak of the use of the word “mystery” which we found 
related to marriage in Paul’s use of the term. 


Three of these occur in the Synoptists, in the passage “Unto you 
it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven (of 
God)” in Matt. 138:11—Mk. 4:11—Lk. 8:10; four are in the Reve- 
lation, and the rest (21 times) occur in the Epistles of St. Paul. 

A comparison of all the passages shows the following uses of 
the word: 


1. In the sense of something secret or hidden: 

“of the kingdom of heaven’—Matt. 13:11. 

“of the kingdom of God’—Mk. 4:11; Lk. 8:10. 

“of God’—1 Cor. 2:1—Eng. Testimony (apud. Text. Rec.) ; 
Rev. 10:7. 

“which hath been kept in silence” (A. V. ‘secret’)—Rom, 
16:25. (cf. infra Eph. and Col.) 

“God’s wisdom’’-—1 Cor. 2:7. 

“know all m. and knowledge”’—1 Cor. 13:2. 

“he that speaketh in a tongue * * * speaketh mysteries’— 
1 Cor. 14:2. 


2. More specifically, 
a) The “name” of the woman—Rev. 17:5, 7. 
b) “of the seven stars’—Rev. 1:20. 
c) “of lawlessness’—2 Thess. 2:7. 
d) “of godliness’—1 Tm. 3:16. 
e) “of his will’—Eph. 1:9. 
f) concerning the resurrection—1 Cor. 15:51. 
g) the hardening of the hearts of the Jews—Rom. 11:25. 


3. This leaves eleven passages in which the meaning is more 
or less indefinite, but related: 

“py revelation was made known unto me the mystery * * * 
of Christ; which in other generations was not made 
known * * * that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs, and 
fellow members of the body.’—Eph. 3:3-6 (twice). 


The Christian Mysteries 157 


The idea that even lawful wedlock had in it some taint of 
impurity and evil, though surely not derived from the teach- 
ing of Christ himself, seems to have been present in the early 
church. If there had not been some tendency to depreciate 





“that they may know the mystery of God (even) Christ, 
in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowl- 
edge”—Col. 2:2-3. 

“the mystery of Christ’’—Col. 4.3. 

“to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mys- 
tery which for ages hath been hid in God * * * accord- 
ing to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ 
Jesus our Lord: in whom we have boldness and ac- 
cess in confidence through our faith in him.”—Eph. 
3:9-12. 

“To make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.” 
—Eph. 6:19. 

“* * * the church; whereof I was made a minister, accord- 
to the dispensation of God which was given me to 
you ward, to fulfill the word of God (even) the mys- 
tery which hath been hid for ages and generations: 
but now hath it been manifested to his saints to whom 
God was pleased to make known what is the riches 
of the glory of this mystery among the gentiles, which 
is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”—Col. 1:24-27 
(twice). 

‘holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.” 
—1 Tim. 3:9. | 

“This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ 
and of the Church.”—Eph. 5:32. 

“Let a man so account of us as ministers of Christ and 
stewards of the mysteries of God.’—1 Cor. 4:1. 


Whether there is really any “development” in the thought in 
these passages or not, I have tried to arrange them in the order 
of their apparent “objective” explicitness. In this connection it 
is of interest to notice that while there is but one instance of 
the use of the word UVOTYOLOV in second Thessalonians, and that 
in quite an unusual sense, there are 6 in 1 Cor., but 2 in Rom., 
and 4 in Colossians, and not only is this the generally accepted 
order in which the epistles were written, but the application of 
the term to Christ, and the beginning “in Christ” are all found in 


158 Sacraments and Society 


marriage, the exhortation in the Epistle of the Hebrews, “let 
marriage be had in honor among all” would hardly have been 
necessary, and the attitude of St. Paul towards matrimony 
may be said to have been one of suffrance rather than ap- 
proval.2? Of the actual administration of Christian mar- 
riage we have no mention in the New Testament, though St. 
Paul has much to say of certain restrictions laid upon the 
faithful in this respect,?4 and as marriage is, even today, a 
social rather than a religious ceremony, it did not come un- 
der the control of the Church till late.?® 


Colossians and Ephesians. Of the latter Moffatt says: “The 
epistles to Timotheus and Titus, together with Ephesians, are 
probably Pauline rather than Paul’s.” (Introd. to the Lit. of 
the N. T. (N. Y., 1914), p. 68.) On the doubtful passage, Rom. 
16:25-27, which contains one of our examples, vide ibid., pp. 
189 ff. 

We are not interested, primarily, in the use of terms from the 
Mystery religions, in the New Testament, but solely in the use 
of the term “mystery” for the sacred rites which came to be all 
important in the subsequent history of the Church. 

On the use of Mystery-terminology by St. Paul, vide Wend- 
land, op. cit., p. 156; Reitsenstein, Die hellenistischen Mysterien- 
religionen (Leips., 1910), p. 95ff.; Lake, K., The Harlier Epistles 
of St. Paul (Lond., 1911), p. 44ff. et al; Kennedy, H. A. A., St. 
Paul and and the Mystery-Religions (Lond., 1913), p. 115ff., who 
is interested in disproving any direct influence; for other refer- 
ences vide Case, op. cit. p. 350. 

While it is probably true that the common terminology of the 
Mysteries was used popularly, in a very general way, something 
as the word “christen” has come to be among us, and while it is 
also undoubted that many of the words are to be found also in 
the Old Testament, if we are to look for an explanation of St. 
Paul’s use of these terms, in writing to the Gentiles, should we 
not find it in the former source rather than the latter? 

23 Heb. 13:4 cf. 1 Cor. 7:1, 7, 38. It seems as though the as- 
cetic spirit to which we have already referred in the notes, had 
profoundly influenced St. Paul, and though he defends marriage, 
he does not counsel it. 

241 Cor. 7:12ff.; 2 Cor. 6:14ff. 

25 Duchesne says “Il faut descendre jusqu’ au temps du pape 


The Christian M ysteries 159 


We have now reached the limits of the evidence for the 
use of any sacred rites, in the New Testament, except the 
Eucharist, the discussion of which I shall postpone till the 
last. But, as I have said, there are some hints of the exist- 
ence of two other rites, though no mention of their actual 
use. 

The first of these is the public confession of sins. The re- 
mission of sins is associated with the earliest instance of 
Christian baptism, and in a subsequent example of conversion 
we are told that “many also of them that believed came, con- 
fessing, and declaring their deeds” 7° where two very signifi- 
cant things are to be noted: first, that those who are said to 
have confessed were already Christians, since there is no 
mention of their being baptized at the time, which apparently 
refers to the whole period of Paul’s sojourn in Ephesus. 
They had been baptised, there is every reason to believe from 
the context, previously, and now they came and openly con- 
fessed the sins they had subsequently committed. The sec- 
ond point of interest is the use, in this particular connection 
of the word, exomologesis, which is the word that the Greek 
speaking Christians used for the sacrament of Penance.?’. 

The Epistle of James has a specific recommendation of the 
use of anointing in the case of sickness.2® We are perhaps 


Nicolas I. pour trouver une description un peu éntendu des rites, 
du marriage dans l’Eglise latine.” (Origines du Culte Chrétien. 
(Paris, 1902.) Eng. trans. Christian Worship, 4th ed., Lond., 1912, 
3d. ed., pp. 428-429). This would be in the middle of the ninth 
century. The only reference earlier than this which he can give 
is Tertul. Ad Uzor. II. 9. 

26 Acts 19:18—TJ]ohAol te tHV mEmlotevXdOTWVY TOYOVTO 
EEOUOAOVOULLEVOL “aL aAvayyeAovTEs tas MOGEELS AUTO: 

27 The word appears in Barnabas xix. 12. 

28 Jas. 5:183—“Is any among you sick? Let him call for the 
elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him 
with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith shall 
save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up: and if he 
have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him.” 


160 Sacraments and Society 


justified in assuming from this passage that such anointing 
was a recognized rite, since it is evidently to be done formally 
and by the official ministers of the Church, but there is no 
further mention of its use.2® No definite effect is directly 
attributed to the act of anointing itself, in fact it is the 
prayer which it is said will “save him that is sick’ and the 
power of his recovery is ascribed to the Lord. But the re- 
sult of the whole proceeding is to be the remission of his sin, 
and perhaps we may assume, on the basis of our study, that 
the prayer is the “myth” which accompanies the rite. 

We find, then, that there is, in the New Testament, posi- 
tive evidence of the use of only three Christian rites besides 
the Lord’s Supper, while there is but the bare mention of 
those other rites which, after the lapse of several centuries, 
came to be esteemed, together with these four, as the seven 
Sacraments of the Church. 

The consideration of the most important of all Christian 
rites, the Holy Eucharist, has been postponed till the last for 
two reasons. In the first place, there is, strangely enough, so 
little plain reference to its use anywhere in the New Testa- 
ment, outside the first epistle to the Corinthians, that, had it 
not already been in use as a sacred rite, before a single word 
of the New Testament had been written, we can not con- 
ceive of any one’s discovering it in these writings themselves 
—except as the actual Supper of the Lord is recorded to 
have taken place—or finding sufficient justification in them 
for the inception of its use as the central rite of Christian 
worship. In the second place, because as a matter of actual 
fact, it did unquestionably assume that place, it is the most 
important of all the sacraments and round it the controversies 
of the ages have raged, so that the most of our further study 
will be concerned with this as the representative Christian 
rite. 


29 The reference in Mk. 6:13 is much less formal and seems 
quite different in intent. 


The Christian Mysteries 161 


The brief account in the three synoptic gospels is well 
known.*° But the most detailed account is found in I Cor- 
inthians 1 :23-34, where it is clearly a well articulated rite 
and the center of worship. There are two very striking 
things about St. Paul’s account. He begins with the words 
“For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto 
you.” ** Strange words, these, since there is no reason to 
believe that they refer to an incident in his conversion ex- 
perience. When and how could Paul have “received” this 
important tradition from his Lord? There seems to be but 
one answer. It came to him when first, as a faithful Chris- 
tian, fully admitted to the privileges of his membership in 
the Church, he took part in the sacred rite of the Eucharist, 
and heard those sacred words recited by the “president”? who 
conducted the rite. They came to him “officially” when he 
was charged with the duties and responsibilities of an 
“Apostle” in the Church of Christ, and in this capacity he 
had himself administered the rite in the Corinthian Church. 
“From the Lord” they had come, in the unbroken tradition 
of the most sacred rite of the new religion, and we may con- 
sider the words as he set them down in his epistle, as- the 
“myth” which accompanied that rite. From that day to this 
they have appeared, practically without change, in every one 
of the numerous Liturgies which have come into use in the 
various parts of the Church.*” 

The other interesting feature of what St. Paul has to say 
is his declaration that ‘as often as ye eat this bread, and 
drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till he come.” ** 


30 Mat. 26:26-29; Mk.14:22-25; Lk. 22:17-20. Only in the lat- 
ter do the significant words “this do in remembrance of me” 
occur. 

31 Eva yoo maogAaBov and tov Kuotov 6 xali nagédmxa. Dplv. 

32 For these Liturgies vide Brightman, F. E., Liturgies Eastern 
and Western, vol. I. Eastern Liturgies, Oxford, 1896. 


33 * * * toy Hdvatov tov Kvolov xatayyéAete * * * Cv. 26). 


162 Sacraments and Society 


In the light of the survey of religious rites which we have 
made, and in the light of the well known domusvov of the 
Greek Mysteries, with which the Corinthians could hardly 
have been unfamiliar, it seems to me there is but one natural 
interpretation of this expression. The Eucharist, the sacred 
rite of Christian worship, is the dramatic representation of 
the death of Jesus on the cross. 

We are not here concerned with any doctrinal interpreta- 
tion of the commemoration of the Lord’s Supper, as it is 
generally considered to be, but in the origin of this important 
Christian rite, and it seems quite possible, to say the least, 
that while all the ritual acts of the rite, together with the 
words which accompany those acts are derived from the Last 
Supper, the rite as such originated in a desire for communion 
with Jesus Christ, believed to be the Son of God, and does, 
actually constitute a dramatic representation of his death. 

It is quite impossible, within the limits imposed upon us, 
to trace in detail the history of the use of all these sacraments, 
but it is important that we should realize how unremitting 
has been their use, and what a vital need they have filled in 
the life of the Church. 

In the first persecution of the Christians in which religion 
was really the ground for the persecution, that under Domi- 
tian in 95 A. D., it was not for what the Christians believed 
that they were put to death, but because they refused to 
take part in the seemingly innocuous rite of offering sacri- 
fice to the Emperor. It was for this reason that they were 
called “atheists” and the use of a rite came to be a matter of 
life or death. *4 

Somewhat later, under Trajan, we learn from Pliny’s let- 
ters that those Christians who refused to offer incense before 
the statue of the Emperor and to make a libation of wine, 
were condemned to death. And here again it is wholly a 


84 Dio Cassius, Hist Rom. 67, 14; ef. Suetonius, Claud, 25, 4. 
Beurlier, E., Le Culte Imperial (Paris, 1891), p. 272. 


The Christian Mysteries 163 


question of rites, and one of the earliest accounts we have 
of Christian worship is to be found in these same letters of 
Pliny, in which he describes with considerable detail the 
Christian rites.® 

In the second Apology of Justin, who suffered martyrdom 
under Marcus Aurelius some time about 165 A. D., twelve 
chapters are given up to defending the Christians against the 
charges of godlessness and hostility to the state, and seven 
chapters (61-67) are devoted to a description of the rites of 
divine service. But Justin was, above all else, a philosopher, 
and occupies forty-eight chapters of his Apology with a 
defence of the moral teaching of Christianity, and a com- 
parison of its teachings with those of the heathen religions. 
This is a new emphasis on “doctrine” and the beginning of 
the intellectual interest which ended in the elaborate ‘“Sys- 
tems’ of theology, but in spite of it the rite remains central, 
and finally attracts the theological controversies to itself. 
But we are now nearing the end of the second century of the 
Christian era. 

What indication of the use of the Sacraments can we find 
in Justin’s writings? 

He speaks of baptism as a ‘“‘washing called illimination,” 
which is administered in the name of the Trinity, and con- 
fers the remission of sins,** and as a “washing into regenera- 
tion” *7 and in his Dialogue with Trypho ** he writes: ‘“Ac- 
cordingly, God, anticipating all the sacrifices which we offer 
through his name, and which Jesus the Christ enjoined us 
to offer, 7. ¢., the Eucharist of the bread and the cup, and 
which are presented by Christians in all places throughout 
the world, bears witness that they are well pleasing to Him.” 





85 Pliny’s Letters to Trajan, esp. Nos. 96 and 98; cir. 112 A. D. 

36 Apol. I. 61. vide infra. p. 188 n. 37 for the use of the term 
“illuminati.” 

87 ibid. c. 66, 

38 c, 117. 


164 Sacraments and Society 


There seems to be no specific mention of the other sacra- 
ments in Justin, but such mention would not accord well with 
the purpose of an apostolic treatise, addressed to those out- 
side the Church. 

There is ample evidence for these others, however, in the 
writers both before and after Justin. The Epistle of Barna- 
bas speaks of exomologesis, but in such a way that the con- 
fession seems to be addressed only to God, though the par- 
don is publicly pronounced in the Church,®® and the Didache 
says “In the church thou shalt acknowledge thy transgres- 
sions and thou shalt not come near for thy prayer with an 
evil conscience.*° The sacred ministry of the Church has 
taken very definite shape before the martyrdom of Ignatius, 
Bishop of Antioch, and in his epistle to Smyreans he speaks 
of that Eucharist being valid which was presided over by the 
Bishop or his deputy,*t and Clement of Alexandria mentions 
three “grades” of the sacred ministry.4? Confirmation, as 
we have seen, was at first almost a part of the initiatory rite, 
so closely was it associated with baptism. Tertullian still 
treats it as so associated, calling it by a name which appears 
to have been the accepted use for this rite even in the New 
Testament, but which is not there perfectly explicit, except 
when one knows the rite already by that name, that is the 
“seal.” 42 Clement of Alexandria, on the other hand, writ- 


89 Barnabas, Hp. c. 19. cf. Clement, 1st. Ep., 2. 

40 Didache iv. 14. The date is probably about 150 A.D. 
(Kriiger, G., Hist. of Early Xtian Lit., Eng. trans. (N. Y., 1897) 
p. 67) 

41¢, 8. Doubts as to the historicity of his martyrdom have been 
expressed (vide Kriiger, op. cit., p. 38). On the double recen- 
sion of his epistles vide Lightfoot, J. B., The Apostolic Fathers, 
(London, 1912), p. 100. 

42 Strom. VI. 13. Apostle is used interchangeably with Bishop. 
Clement wrote about 200 A. D. 

43 Tertullian, De Bap. 6; 8; obsignata=oqoayisa cf. 2 Cor 
1:22; Eph. 1:18 et al. 


———— 


The Christian Mysteries 165 


ing at about the same time as Tertullian, treats the “blessed 
seal” as though it were separate from baptism ** and when 
we get to Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, it is treated as a 
separate sacrament.*® There is very little mention of Unc- 
tion as a separate rite. Tertullian discusses, in connection 
with baptism, an anointing the meaning of which is not 
clear.*® Clement of Alexandria speaks of an “unguent of 
faith” which again is inconclusive.*7 In the Apostolic Consti- 
tutions, however, we find a clear reference to the mystic oil 
“blessed by the high-priest for the remission of sins” #8 which 
can hardly be anything but the chrism used in Unction.*® 
Enough has been said to prove that down to the middle of 
the third century the seven sacred rites which are commonly 
called the Sacraments were in constant use, though there is 
considerable difference in the frequency of reference to them, 
and some confusion between them.®® This is only what we 
should expect, since rites do not spring up in a day. Bap- 
tism and Confirmation originally constituted together the 
initiation rite into the Christian community. We have dis- 
covered evidence of their separation and the establishment 
of two separate rites. The confusion which thus arose still 


44 Strom. II. 3. 

45Ep. 72, 1. Assigned by Ritschl to the year 256 (Kruger, 
op. cit., p.. 296). 

46 De Baptismo, c. 7. Anointing with oil was used with both 
baptism and Confirmation. This chapter comes between the dis: 
cussions of these two and may refer to either. 

47 Protrep. c. 12. 

48 Apost. Const. VII. 42. The date is uncertain; it may be the 
third century, but probably this compilation rests on much 
earlier sources, and this seventh book is thought to be a re- 
cension of the Didache, vide Kriiger, op. cit., pp. 356ff., cf. p. 67. 

49 But even here the distinction is not certain. 

50 There is almost no reference to marriage. Tertullian has 
three treatises, To his wife, An Exhortation to Chastity, and On 
Monogamy, all of which exalt chastity above marriage, and re- 
flect his Montanist bias. 


166 Sacraments and Society 


exists, and is clearly reflected in the doctrines concerning 
them, as we shall see. Baptism was primarily a rite of puri- 
fication, supplemented by the additional rite of “inspiration’’ 
if we may use that word, which conferred upon the recipient 
a positive gift of holiness.*+ Confession became a secondary 
rite of purification and remission of sins, and was closely 
associated with the Eucharist, for which it served as a pre- 
paration. At first it was specific and open, that is the definite 
confession of particular sins to the whole congregation, from 
which it passed through several stages of transition ** till it 
finally became merely a general confession as part of the 
Liturgy of the Eucharist, but also evolved into a separate 
and specific private confession besides. Ordination, or the 
Sacrament of Holy Order, has not clearly appeared as a 
rite up to the point to which our study has brought us, but 
the administrative and official duties of the clergy have clear- 


51Immortality would seem to have been associated with this 
gift of the Holy Spirit, rather than with the purification, if we 
may distinguish between the two elements of the rite. 


52 Tertullian (De Poenit. 9 et al) speaks of confession as 
though it were public; cf. De Bap. 20; Iranaeus Adv. Haeres. I 
18, 5; Apost. Canons 52. The declarative form of absolution, used 
in the West only, dates from the 13th cent. Clem. Alex, speaks 
of the priest judging who is worthy to receive absolution (Strom. 
I. 1) and the first suggestion of “indulgence” appears in Cyprian 
(Zp. 11). Basil (Hp. 199) treats of those sins not publicly con- 
fessed, showing the beginning of the office of “penitentiary” 
which began after the Decian persecution, but’ was abolished 
during the fifth century, cf. Solomon, Hccl. Hist., VII. 16. The 
transition from public to private confession was not completed 
till the 12th century, though it began in the West as early as 
the middle of the fifth. (Leo I., Hpis. ad Episcop., quoted in 
Bingham, Antigq., VIII. lii. 4, and Hooker, Eccl. Pol. Bk. VI.) 


On the history of Confession vide Marshall, N., The Peniten- 
tial Discipline in the Primitive Church (Oxford, 1844), Roberts, 
C. M., A Treatise on the Hist. of Confession (Lond., 1901), 
Bickersteth, Cyril, The Ministry of Absolution (N. Y., 1912). 


The Christian Mysteries 167 


ly appeared.** Such an official ministry was essential to the 
preservation of the Church, and given the Pentecostal ex- 
perience and the previous Institution of the Eucharistic rite, 
and some rite of ordination must follow. Unction and Mat- 
rimony we have found mentioned, here and there, yet still 
in a nebulous condition which seems to suggest that they are 
still in the process of ‘“‘becoming.” This is a tempting sub- 
ject for speculation, but we must try to confine ourselves to 
a dispassionate and impartial enumeration of the facts as we 
find them. 

Were one to launch out into speculation, one question that 
immediately occurs to press for an answer is why the two 
rites connected with the purification of women after child- 
birth and with burial, never came to be exalted to the grade 
of sacraments. If primitive practice is to be any guide to us 
in forming a conclusion as to the real value of the Sacra- 
ments, surely we should expect these two rites, so closely 
connected with the two great mysteries of life and death to 
have been among those rites which the Christian Church 
would have esteemed most highly. And yet, mirabile dictu, 
such is not the case! ** 

In the passage from Clement of Alexandria, to which we 
just referred, °° he draws a parallel between the pagan Mys- 
teries and the sacred mysteries of the Church, which is al- 
most the first instance we find of the acceptance of this 
analogy. He says, in part: 





53 e, g., Clem. Alex., Paed. III. 12; Strom. VI. 18; Ignatius, Ad 
Smyr. 8; Apost. Const. VII. 42 ana 48. 

54'These ceremonies occupy important positions in the whole 
series considered as stages of transition in human life, on the 
theory advanced by van Gennep. (Rites de passage.) But some 
influence prevented them from holding this position in the Chris- 
tian system. Was it the emphasis on the soul rather than the 
body, and the conviction that life and death were subject to im- 
mutable laws? 

55 Protrep. c.. 12. 


168 Sacraments and Society 


“Then thou shalt see my God and be initiated into the 
sacred mysteries, and come to the fruition of those things 
which are laid up in heaven. * * I will show you the Lord 
and the mysteries of the Word, expounding them after thine 
own fashion. * * O truly sacred mysteries, O stainless light! 
My way is lighted with torches, and I survey the heavens 
and God; I become holy whilst I am initiated. The Lord is 
the hierophant and seals with illumination him who is ini- 
tiated, and presents to the Father him .who believes, to be 
kept safe forever. Such are the reveries of my mysteries.” 

Bitter though the Conflict was between the Christian faith 
and the pagan Mysteries, Clement admits that there are many 
suggestions of resemblance. Earlier in this same treatise he 
has declared that the Mysteries were the “prime authors of 
evil” °° and Justin had attributed these resemblances to 
devils.°” How are we to explain this apparent contradiction? 
With the morality, or rather immorality, of the Mysteries, as 
it appeared to the Christians, they could have no parley, 
but the ideas which underlay their religious rites were simi- 
lar, and the elemental human nature to which both appealed 
was one. 

Farnell suggests that the ideas which the Christian rites 
presented were new, in a sense, but not alien to the Mediter- 
ranean world, and this kinship facilitated the propagation of 
Christianity from the start.°® It was the presence of the 
Oriental and Greek Mysteries that was responsible for this. 

It may be seriously doubted whether the confidence in the 
possibility of a real communion with God, the conviction of 
an assured immortality, for which the world longed so in- 
tensely at the time, could ever have been meditated to it by 
the Christian religion, had it not found its expression through 

56 Protrep. c. 2. 

57 Apol. I. 66; cf. Dial. 70. 


58 Hibbert Journal II. (1903-1904), p. 307. vide supra p. 111, 
n. 28. 


The Christian Mysteries 169 


these very Sacramental rites which many people have come 
to think are superstitious and “magical” and a relic of bar- 
barism that should disappear before the onward sweep of an 
intelligent civilization.®® 





59cf. H. G. Wood, “Baptism in Hasting’s Encyc. of Relig. & 
Ethics, I. p. 397. .cf. infra p. 216 end and n. 14. 


XI 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE SACRAMENTS 


The whole course of our study of religious rites has tended, 
it seems to me, to show that doctrine is wholly secondary 
and subsequent to rites in the history of the development of 
religion, and our interest in the doctrines which come to be 
associated with any rite are, for this reason, wholly subor- 
dinate to our main interest in the function of the rite itself. 
But since the popular impression is usually that doctrine is 
the primary and important thing, particularly in the Christian 
religion, it is necessary for us to make a brief survey of the 
changes that have taken place in the doctrine of the Sacra- 
ments, or more accurately speaking, in their theological in- 
terpretation. 

Sacramental doctrine has never, in the strictest sense of 
the word, taken a place in the formulation of that doctrine 
which was de fide, but it has occupied a prominent place in 
the history of theological polemics. It would be outside the 
purpose of our study to attempt to make a comprehensive 
statement of these numerous differences of opinion, but it is 
important to our contention that we should emphasize the 
fact that they ave taken place, and that the history of the 
doctrinal side of the sacramental system of the Christian 
church is a history of incessant change. The number of the 
Sacraments was finally fixed at seven by the Council of 
Florence, during those troublous days when the Roman 
church was vainly endeavoring to silence the clamor for re- 
formation and stifle the growing spirit of revolt, and Tran- 
substantiation had received the sanction of Innocent II. and 
the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, but during no time 


170 


The Doctrine of the Sacraments 171 


previous to this had there been any such unanimity of opinion 
as the Vincentian Canon of catholic truth would re- 
quire. The use of the sacred rites of baptism, the Eucharist 
and anointing with oil, either at baptism or subsequently, had 
been and continued to be found “everywhere, always and by 
all,’ and to these were added other sacred rites, but which 
of them should be esteemed “sacraments” and what should 
be believed about their effects and the way in which these 
were wrought, these things were, from the very first, mat- 
ters of uncertainty and dispute. 

We have already seen that the use of ceremonies springs 
from the need of the social life of a group to find some ex- 
pression for the single spirit which animates it, and further 
that as the sense of oneness is weakened, or a doubt as to the 
purpose and significance of the ceremony arises, two things 
result: first there is a renewal of emphasis on the ceremony 
itself, and insistence on its necessity to renew and strengthen 
the weakened sense of “participation,” and then, subsequent- 
ly, there appear elaborate explanations of the origin of the 
ceremony and the purposes it is intended to fulfil, which 
elevate it to the grade of a sacred rite. As the Christian 
church is not peculiar in the use of sacred rites, so it is not 
peculiar in the elaboration of “doctrinal” explanations of 
them, and we shall find that as disputes and conflicts arose, 
each lent something in its turn to the interpretation of the 
Church’s rites. 

In the last chapter we found that down to the middle of 
the third century but three of the seven rites which were 
finally called sacraments appear to have firmly established 
themselves in the position of primary importance, though 
the others are not without mention. We must now attempt 
to discover the way in which these seven came into this one 
classification, but as it is manifestly impossible, within the 
limits imposed upon our study, to consider them all in de- 
tail, we will do well to devote our attention chiefly to the first 


172 Sacraments and Society 


three. The process by which the others came to be classed 
with these three, is much the same as that by which the Ni- 
cene Creed, as we know it today, grew out of the original 
creed of the Council of Nicea, which ended with the words 
“TI believe in the Holy Ghost.” The life of the Church found 
a need which was forthwith supplied, but the steps of the 
process are not left on record. | 

Duschene begins his work on Christian Worship? with 
the statement that Christianity sprang out of Judaism, but 
this does not tell all that there is to tell about it. While un- 
doubtedly true, it is also true that Christianity did not long 
remain a Jewish sect, but passed from Antioch out into the 
Mediterranean world to take its place along side of other 
religions preaching redemption, and after a fierce conflict 
lasting over three hundred years, drove them all from the 
field. Jewish were baptism and the Lord’s Supper, possibly, 
in their inception, but when they appear in the New Testa- 
ment, after the lapse of some forty years, at the least, and 
when we find them in subsequent Christian literature, they 
are no longer wholly Jewish, but have taken on the spirit of 
the Mysteries.2 The terminology of the Greek Mysteries 
seems to have passed over into Christian writings even with 
St. Paul, and the evidence points to the adoption of the con- 
ceptions as well as the language, with scarcely any change. 
“That such ideas should emerge in the Christian community 
is natural enough, when we consider its environment—a 
world without natural science, steeped in belief in every kind 
of magic and enchantment, and full of public and private 


1 This is the title of the English translation of his Origines du 
Culte Cretien (London, 1912), published by the S. P. C. K. 


2“Der ganze Apparat der Mysterienterminologie ist in die 
Praxis und noch mehr in die Theorie der Kirche eingedrungen.” 
(Wendland, op. cit., p. 224.) 


Lhe Doctrine of the Sacraments 173 


religious societies, every one of which had its mysteries and 
miracles and its blood-bond with its peculiar deity.” ® 

The Didache is sometimes appealed to as representing the 
earliest and “purest’’ conception of the Eucharist, free from 
any of the terminology of the Mysteries, because of the 
prayer: 


“As this broken bread was scattered upon the 
mountains and gathered together became one, so let 
Thy church be gathered together from the ends of 
the earth into Thy kingdom, for Thine is the glory 
and the power through Jesus Christ for ever.” * 


But there is no reason to believe that this prayer represented 
the whole of the liturgy, since it is spoken of as a “thank- 
giving’ a term which applied to a particular part of the 
liturgy, as well as to the whole rite (Eucharist), and further- 
more, the Didache is believed to have been originally a purely 
Jewish catechism for proselytes which was “adapted” to 
Christian use. This would account, to some extent, for its 
brief form, as well as for the clearly Jewish type of expres- 
sion.® But even the Didache is not unfamiliar with the 
Mysteries, since it contains an enigmatic reference to a “cos- 
mic mystery” in its eleventh chapter.® 





3 Glover, op. cit., p. 158. On the introduction of the terminology 
of the Mysteries, and references to its use, vide Hatch, E., The 
Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church 
(London, 1907), p. 296 ff. 

4 Didache X. 4. 

5 The present form of the text is supposed to have originated 
in Syria, about 150 A. D., by additions to the earlier “adapted” 
form. cf. Kriiger, op. cit., pp. 66-67. On the Didache vide Schaff, 
P., The Oldest Church Manual (N. Y. 2nd ed., 1886), esp. p. 
190 ff. This passage is enlarged in the seventh Book of the 
Apostolic Constitutions. 

6 Schaff translates the passage: And every approved genuine 
prophet, who makes assemblies for a worldly mystery, etc. The 


174 Sacraments and Society 


Whatever may have been the intention of this term ‘‘cos- 
mic mystery,” one thing is certain, the prevalence of astrology 
in the first century of our era was a much more potent fac- 
tor in influencing popular thought than is now generally 
realized, and “the polemics of the Fathers of the Syrian 





text is [lds 5& moopitys Sedoxtwacuévoc dAndivds moidv ats 
MVOTHOLOV “OoULXOV Exxdynolac xt» and it has puzzled the 
commentators no little. Schaff gives about a dozen different 
attempts at translation. But is it so difficult to understand what 
a “cosmic mystery” may be, after our survey of the oriental mys- 
teries which must have been familiar in Egypt and Syria when 
the Didache took its present form? The Syrian Goddess was a 
nature deity, mistress of fertility, and Robertson Smith has given 
us a minute description of the local Syrian “Baals.” In Egypt 
the sacred rites of Isis had an intimate relation with the yearly 
overflow of the life-giving waters of the Nile. And we have 
mentioned that the Syrian Goddess brought in her train the 
Chaldean sooth-sayers and astrologers, who taught that every- 
thing was governed by the action of the stars. It seems hardly 
necessary to search for some “secular” or ‘worldly’ meaning 
with which to discern the sense of this passage in the Didache, 
when the simplest and quite the most obvious meaning is sup- 
ported by all the evidence of the pagan mysteries. It is those 
“cosmic mysteries” which claim to control or influence the course 
of nature, the governance of which our Heavenly Father holds in 
the hollow of His hand, which are not to be countenanced by the 
Christians, and the prophet who tries to assemble the church for 
such mysteries will receive his punishment from God. But let 
us note that if this be the correct interpretation of this passage, 
we have here, by inference at least, consent to the presence of 
some other mysteries, not mentioned. 

In this connection I may refer to van Gennep, who says that 
the final application of the theory of “rites of passage” is in re- 
lating the various stages of human life, by a sort of prescientific 
divination, to the grand rhythm of the universe; (op. cit., p. 
279); and to Frazer, who says that when there is a periodic time 
for public purification, such as the Jewish Atonement, it usually 
occurs at one of the transitions between seasons, or at the be- 
ginning of a new year, civic, religious or solar. (G@. B., TX. 224- 
225). 


The Doctrine of the Sacraments 175 


Church show how considerable its prestige was’? even in 
the Christian community. Harnack thinks that the resistance 
offered to it by the Church is to be considered “a great 
achievement’ and yet it was not wholly eradicated, for 
though it was attacked as pagan in the second century, it 
“raised its head within the church in the third, had to be 
sharply refuted in the fourth, but after the third century 
the ‘theologians’ no longer controlled the Christian commun- 
ity and could not prevent its ‘filtering in.” *® But it may be 
questioned whether the theologians were themselves wholly 
free from some taint of its influence. The Dominican edi- 
tors of the English translation of the Summa of St. Thomas, 
which is being issued but is not yet complete, thought it 
necessary to comment, in their introduction, on the evidence 
of astrological conceptions in his work, and they are forced 
to admit that “in one department of Science, however, it can- 
not be denied that St. Thomas is ‘behind the age.’”” This is 
in astronomy, but they explain that he labored under the 
limitations of his time, and speaks only as an “educated 
gentleman of his day.” ® While it is true “that St. Thomas 
frequently refers to the ruling of the ‘heavenly bodies’ in 
human affairs” this is explained as meaning that the stars 
exercised their influence “in agreement with other laws, and 
in subordination to all superior laws; above all in absolute 
subjection to the supreme and absolute Will of God.” 1° For 
over twelve centuries this idea that the movements of the 
planets had a direct influence on the progress of human 
affairs, dominated the thought of the civilized world, and it 


7 Cumont, Orien. Religs., p. 251, n. 57 end. 
8 Harnack, Miss. and Expan. of Xty., I. p. 316 no. 1. 
» Part I. lst Number, p. lxxx., Bensiger Bros. (N. Y., 1911). 


10 wt supra. This is deduced from Pars. I., Q. 18, Art. I., ad 1: 
“Motus coeli est in universo corporalium naturam sicut motis 
cordis in animali quo conservatur vita.” But this sounds much 
more like the Stoic doctrine of the universe being “one animal.” 


176 Sacraments and Society 


would not be strange if we found that it had left its lasting 
impress on Christian “doctrine.” +4 The seven planets have 
had a curious history. Plato thought them divine living 
bodies, and subsequent philosophers speculated more concern- 
ing them, the doctrine of their spheres finding its Greek be- 
ginning, no doubt, in the purely astronomical speculations of 
Eudoxus, who introduced the hypothesis of three concentric 


11 The conception that the soul returned, after death, to the 
heavenly spheres spread over the Occident towards the end of 
the republic and was generally accepted towards the end of the 
empire, when the abode of the dead, “the Elysian fields” which 
the votaries of Isis and Serapis still located in the depths of the 
earth, was transferred to the sphere of the fixed stars or some 
other heavenly realm. cf. Cumont, Orien. Religs., pp. 125 ff., esp. 
253 n. 64 et seq., 284 n. 19, 286 n. 25; Astrol. and Relig., esp. 
chap. 3. 

Cumont insists that the idea that the soul returns to its home 
above the stars originated in Babylon, to which Anz traces also 
Gnosticism (in Texte und Untersuchungen, XV. 4, Leipzig, 1897), 
but as I have already said, Moulton connects the doctrine that 
the plants were malevolent with the Magi. 

The early Zoroastrian system associated the “wandering stars” 
with Ahriman, the Prince of Evil, and assigned one of these as 
the antagonist to each of the great fixed stars of the four direc- 
tions. (Bundahis 5:1). The wanderings of the planets seemed 
to be an element of disorder in the heavens, and this would 
probably account for their being looked upon as inhabited by 
evil spirits. Moulton thinks that this element of astrology was 
brought to the Avesta by the Magi, who were “strangers alike 
to Aryan and to Semite.” Later the old names for the planets 
were displaced by names borrowed from Babylonian star wor- 
ship, and we have the startling incongruity in the Avesta that 
the names given to the planets are those of the Yazatas, the 
“imperishable ones” or divine beings associated with the god of 
Good, while their character shows their connection with the 
powers of Evil. (cf. Early Zoroastrianism, pp. 211 ff.). 

The names for the planets, including the sun and moon in the 
ancient category, are borrowed from the Semitic star worship. Of 
the peculiar history through which these names have passed, Cu- 
mont says: “When the Greeks learned to recognize the five 


The Doctrine of the Sacraments 177 


heavenly spheres, each of which was material, in our sense 
of the word, and each revolving at a different rate, to account 
for the cycle of the eclipses. It was not only in the 
“spiritual” sense that the planets had “spheres of influence,” 
for the Greek astronomers at least, for Aristotle extended 
the hypothesis of Eudoxus, and added a number of compen- 
sating spheres to avoid the possibility of interference in this 
elaborate mechanism which was intended to account for the 
periodic motions of the heavenly bodies, and Aristotle had 
each planet fastened to its sphere so that it would revolve 
with it. This is the beginning of the Ptolemaic astronomy, 
which continued to be the conception of “an educated gentle- 
man” of Thomas Aquinas’ day, and it followed the Pytha- 
gorean tradition that there were seven planets, including the 
sun and moon of course, and they all revolved round the 
earth. 


Prof. Murray, writing of the evolution of Greek religion, 
says :'? “Astrology fell upon the Hellenistic mind as a new 


planets known to antiquity, they gave them names derived from 
their character. * * * After the fourth century (however) other 
titles are found to supersede these ancient names, which are 
gradually ousted from use. The planets became the stars of 
Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares, Zeus, Kronos. Now this seems due to 
the fact that in Babylonia these same planets were dedicated to 
Nebo, Ishtar, Nergal, Marduk, and Ninib. * * * Thus the names 
of the planets which we employ to-day, are an English transla- 
tion of a Latin translation of a Greek translation of Babylonian 
nomenclature.” (Astrol. and Relig., pp. 45-46; italics mine.) 


12 Murray, Gilbert, Four Stages of Greek Religion (N. Y., 
1912), p. 120 ff. The planets were not only considered Elements 
in the Kosmos, Stoicheia, but this same word had long been used 
for the Greek A B C, particularly for the seven vowels q ¢ nt 0 
y qm: “This is no chance, no mere coincidence. The vowels are 
the mystic signs of the planets. Hence strange prayers and magic 
formula innumerable.” (ibid.) cf. Dieterich, Hine Mithrasliturgie, 


178 Sacraments and Society 


disease falls upon some remote island people. Every one 
was ready to receive the germ. The Epicureans, of course, 
held out, and so did Panaetius, the coolest head among the 
Stoics. But the Stoics as a whole gave way. They formed 
with good reason the leading school of philosophy, and it 
would have been a service to mankind if they had resisted. 
But they were already committed to a belief in the deity of 
the stars and to the doctrine of Heimarmené, or Destiny. 
They believed in the pervading Pronoai, or Forethought, of 
the divine mind, and in the Xvunotera tHv dAwv—the 
Sympathy of all Creation,** so that whatever happens to any 
part, however remote or insignificant, affects all the rest. It 
seemed only a natural and beautiful illustration of this Sym- 
pathy that the movements of the Stars should be bound up 
with the sufferings of man. * * * 

“The various Hermetic and Mithrais communities, the 
Naassenes described by Hippolytus‘* and other Gnostic 
bodies, authors like Macrobius and even Cicero in his Som- 
mum Scipionis, are full of the influence of the seven planets 
and of the longing to escape beyond them.” 


Now it seems to me that in all this complex of interests 
and ideas associated with the influence of the seven planets, 
we have just the background in experience which any scien- 
tific theory of the origin of the number seven for the Sacra- 
ments would demand. I know that the reply is likely to be 





pp. 121 ff.; Reitzenstein, Mysterienrelgionen, pp. 20 ff.; Poiman- 
dres, Stud. zur Greichish-egyptischen u. friihChrist, Lit., Leip. 


1904. pp. 226 ff.; Apuleius, Metam. XI. 
For a discussion of the planetary spheres in Porphyry and the 


Neoplatonists, vide Wendland, op. cit. pp. 172 ff. “Der Grundrisz 
dieser Lehre ist heidenisch * * * Durch Umformungen, Erweiter- 
ungen, Hintragungen konnte diese Lehre mit dem Stoffe christ- 
licher und anderer Religionen bereichert werden.” (p. 175). 

18 Cicero, De Nat. Deo. III. 11, 28; esp. De Divina., ii. 14, 34; 
60, 124; 69, 142. 

14 Refutatio Omnium Haeresium VY. 7. 


The Doctrine of the Sacraments 179 


the obvious one, that seven is a “sacred” number, © but this 
would only change the form of our question to why the 
number seven is more sacred than five or eight, numbers 
which have both been given as including the Sacraments 
during the course through which the “doctrine” associated 
with them has passed. 

Gnosticism, with which the Christian teachers, even in St. 
Paul’s day, had to contend, furnishes the connecting link, be- 
tween the astrological doctrine of Fate, ruled by the planets, 
and immortality conferred through the sacraments, by con- 
necting the planetary spheres with sin. 

For the sake of convenience, I take the Gnostic doctrine 
of the planetary spheres from the Hermetic literature, for 
whatever else it may have been, Hermeticism was certainly 
Gnostic.1® In the treatist known as Poimandres, the most 


15 Much has been written on this subject of “sacred numbers.” 
We cannot pause here to discuss it, but only to insist that there 
must have been some reason why any number came to be 
thought sacred. It is not enough to trace the use of the con- 
cept back to its supposed origin, for this gives us no better un- 
derstanding of the reason of it all, than the argument for a 
“first cause.” Here is a perfectly intelligible explanation of the 
reason why seven was thought such a sacred number: because 
the planets ruled the destiny of man and there were seven So- 
called planets. 

M. Levy-Bruhl has some very sensible remarks on the danger 
of taking any one criterion of judgment in trying to discover 
the origin of sacred numbers, among which is this: “elle ne se 
représente donc les directions de l’espace, les points cardineaux 
et leur nombre que dans un complexus mystique auquel le nom- 
bre quatre doit son caractére de catégorie, non logique, mais 
mystique.’ (op cit. p. 246.) 

16 cf. Case, op. cit., p. 328, where references to some of the lit- 
erature on the Hermetic books are given. Besides those there 
mentioned vide Kroll, W., “Hermes Trismegistos’ in Pauly- 
Wissowa, Realencyclopdidie (Stuttgart, 1912), XV., col. 792 ff.; 
Creed, J. M., “The Hermetic Writings,” in Journal of Theological 
Studies, XV (1914), p. 518 ff.; Granger, “The Poemandres of 


180 Sacraments and Society 


important document of the Hermetic corpus, the ninth chap- 
ter begins with the following: 


“ And God-the-Mind (Notc), being male and fe- 
male both, as Light and Life subsisting, brought 
forth another Mind to give things form, who, God 
as he was of Fire and Spirit, formed Seven Rulers 
who enclose the Cosmos that the sense perceives. 
Men call their ruling Fate (eivaouévn).” 7 


At the end of the book (chaps. 24-26) there follows a de- 
scription of death and dissolution, in answer to the disciples’ 
question concerning “the nature of the Way Above,” in 
which it is said that “the body’s senses next pass back into 
their sources, becoming separate, and resurrect as energies; 
and passion and desire withdraw into that nature which is 
void of reason.” Then follows the journey onward through 
the Harmony, the region of the Fate which dwells in the 
heavenly spheres, and to each of these seven “zones” the soul 
surrenders some “energy” or desire which has bound it down 
to earth and mortality, and finally emerges in the Father’s 
home, freed from all contamination of “earthly soul.” *8 


Hermes. Trismegistus,”’ ibid. V. (1904), pp. 395 ff.; VIII. 
(1907), pp. 635 ff.; Bardy, G., in Revue Biblique, VIII. (1911), pp. 
391 ff. 

17 Mead’s translation. Mead has a long note to prove that the 
Hermetic theory of the “spheres” does not apply to the physical 
planets. (Thrice Greatest Hermes, London, 1906, 3 vols., III. p. 
299.) 

18 cf. Poem., IV. 8: “Thou see’st, son, how many are the bodies 
through which we have to pass, how many are the choirs of 
daimones, how vast the system of star-courses (through which 
our path doth lie), to hasten to the One and Only God. For to 
the Good there is no other shore; It hath no bounds; It is with- 
out an end; and for Itself It is without beginning, too, though 
unto us it seemeth to have one—the Gnosis.” It is in this 
treatise, or chapter, which Mead calls ‘The Cup or Monad” that 
the interesting description of the disciple as “contemplator” oc- 


The Doctrine of the Sacraments 181 


The most prominent element in all this doctrine is the em- 
phasis on the contamination of the naturally immortal soul, 
and the taking upon itself of passions and desires in the 
passage from heaven to earth, through the seven spheres of 
the planets, and again its gradual divesting of itself, and the 
rejection of this mortal taint by seven stages on the return 
journey to its abode in the eighth or highest heaven above the 
stars. The Gnostic writings consist largely of charms an” 
mystic formulae which were to be uttered by the soul to each 
of the planets in turn as it pursued this perilous path.*® 

In an obscure passage in his controversy with Marcion the 
Gnostic, Tertullian mentions seven “deadly sins” ®° and the 
conclusion seems to me irresistable that we have here a very 
clear indication of the reason he enumerates just this num- 


curs (IV.2). The text has Beaths and Lactantius, speaking of 
man as the only animal that looks up toward his Creator, says: 
“And this ‘looking’ Hermes has most rightly named contempla- 
tion (Ssontiav).” (inst. vii. 9.) Apparently by the interchange 
of SEwotav for S$contiav the title “Theoretics” became associ- 
ated with the disciples of Hermes, and is mentioned by Justin 
among the most famous schools of philosophers. (Dial. c. Tryph. 
218). Justin also mentions Hermes in his Cohortatio ad Gen- 
tiles (c. 38) and there are also references in Clement of Alex- 
andria (Strom. I. xxi. 134; VI. iv. 35; Protrep. II. 29) and in 
Cyril of Alexandria (I. 30-35). We have here a range of reference 
in Christian writers covering about three hundred years. 

It is interesting, in the light of our discussion, to find Wend- 
land expressing this opinion of the significance of Gnosticism: 
“Die gnostischen Religionen sind die Reaktion gegen die Astral- 
religion, die des Menschen Schicksal unter die Gewalt der Stern- 
gotter stellt.” (op. cit., p. 176.) 

19 The idea that a divine guide conducted the soul along this 
heavenly way was found in the Mithraic Mysteries, and also in 
those of the Syrian cults. vide Orien. Religs., pp. 260-261, and 
253 n. 63; also Texts et Mon., I. 310. The idea of Newman’s 
Dream of Gerontius is very similar. 

20 Adv. Marcion IV. 9. They are “idolatry, blasphemy, murder, 
adultery, fornication, false-witness and fraud.” 


182 Sacraments and Society 


ber and no other, making a very unsatisfactory and illogical 
classification to fit the required number. ‘The doctrine of the 
seven “cardinal sins’’ which seems, so far as I have been 
able to discover, to emerge here, is the Christian substitute 
for the seven planetary spheres of the Gnostics. It is hardly 
necessary to enlarge upon this evident parallelism, but the 
whole of sin and impurity was comprehended within the 
rather indefinite Gnostic division into seven spheres, and the 
cardinal sins, as they were afterwards “rationalized’”’ were 
the seven “pivotal” (cardo pivot or hinge) on which all 
others hang, and from which they may logically be derived.”* 

The suggestion I have to make is that the number of the 
Sacraments was finally settled as seven because the number 
was already associated with the number of “deadly sins.” It 
has never been possible to establish a strict parallelism be- 
tween the two series, but in theory, at least, the suggestion 
that if there are seven types of sin there should be seven 
kinds of sacraments to remove them and supply the immor- 
tality which salvation requires, would seem to me to offer 
a working “hypothesis” as to the underlying cause for the 
eventual decision that there are and should be but seven 
sacraments. 

The most powerful factor in establishing a doctrine of the 
Sacraments was St. Augustine, and yet he “did not evolve a 
harmonious theory either of the number or notion of 
(them). *? He mentions five, or perhaps six, of the seven 


21 This classification was not at once accepted. Cyprian, per- 
haps fifty years later enumerates eight (De Mortal. 4), which 
number is given by Cassian about two hundred years later (De 
Instit. Coenab., V. 5) and by Alcuin toward the end of the 
eighth century (De virtute et vitiis, xxvii, ff.). But it finds place 
in the Moralia of Gregory the Great (xxxi. 17) and finally in 
Thomas Aquinas’ Summa (I. 1., Q. 84 ad 4) and prevails. Evi- 
dently from this we may suppose a divergence of tradition be- 
tween Hast and West. 

22 Harnack, Hist. of Dogma, V. p. 156. 


The Doctrine of the Sacraments 183 


rites and speaks of them as sacraments, but leaves us to in- 
fer that any material sign with which the conferring of sal- 
vation is associated through “the Word” is sacramental.?3 
Here we see that even after eight hundred years the number 
has not been definitely settled, though we have reached the 
beginning of the process of classification which finally 
ended in “definition.” Hugo of St. Victor, writing on the 
Sacraments distinguishes six, ** but in his “sentences” where 
he follows the ancient Fathers, he enumerates but five, Bap- 





23In Joan. Tract 80, 3, “Accedit verbum ad elementum et fit 
sacramentum, etiam ipsum tamquam visibile verbum. cf. Contra 
Faustum, XIX. 19. In Hnchirid. 46, he speaks of the remis- 
sion of post-baptismal sin without calling penance a sacrament, 
though it evidently is intended. 


The Western definition of a sacrament as “signum visibile 
gratiae invisibilis” (Catechism of Council of Trent, IJ. n. 4) rests 
on St. Augustine’s “Signacula quidem rerum divinarum esse 
visibilia, sed res ipsas invisibiles in eis honorari’’ (De Catech. 
rudibus, 50). cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa “solum ea quae 
significant perfectionem sanctitatis humanae.” (III. Q. 60, ii. 
ad. 3). 


In passing we may call attention to Harnack’s note: “Doctrine 
is, strictly speaking, inaccurate; for Catholicism does not know 
any ‘doctrines’ here, but describes an actual state of matter 
brought about by God.” (ut supra, V. 1438 n. 1). 


Tertullian has a passage in which the apparent intent is to 
enumerate the sacred rites, from which we may infer that he 
recognized five: “The flesh, indeed is washed, in order that the 
soul may be cleansed; the flesh is anointed, that the soul 
may be consecrated; the flesh is signed, that the soul too may 
be fortified; the flesh is shadowed with the imposition of hands, 
that the soul also may be illuminated by the Spirit; the flesh 
feeds on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul likewise 
may fatten on its God.” De Resur. 8. But here we can distin- 
guish but three of the seven Sacraments. 


24 De Sac., Bk. II pt. 6 ff. Orders are discussed in II. 3 but 
not called a sacrament. 


184 Sacraments and Society 


tism, the Eucharist, Confirmation, Unction and Marriage. 
The first clear enunciation of the doctrine of seven sacra- 
ments appears in the Sentences of Master Roland, afterward 
Pope Alexander III 7° (1159-1181), and then in Peter Lom- 
bard, the ‘“Master of Sentences,” 27 since whose time it has 
become a part of Catholic theology, a process which took 
almost exactly eleven hundred years! 

As might be supposed, since the number of the Sacraments 
was not strictly limited except after a long period of con- 
stant use in the religious life of Christians, so the theoretical 
explanation of their value did not at once take definite shape. 
The spirit which led to the development of a “doctrine” of 
the Sacraments was the same that led to the final limitation 
of their number. It was the philosophic spirit, which gradu- 
ally transformed the emphasis from the use of the sacred 
rites of the Church to the holding of a definite body of 
orthodox doctrine. We must be satisfied with the mere men- 
tion of some of the most significant incidents in this de- 
velopment. 

First, then, as to the background. The Mystery religions 
and Neoplatonism have both been mentioned already. So 
has the growing spirit of individualism, but a word needs to 
be added on the importance of this, for the individual’s ex- 


25 Summa senten., tr. 5-7, apud Harnack, op. cit., VI. 202, who 
‘says that Robert Pullus also counts five (Senten., V. 22-24; VII. 
14) but substitutes confession and ordination for unction and 
marriage. Here then, in the Schoolmen, we find the seven 
coming into their final position of supremacy. 

26apud Harnack, ut supra. 

27 Sent. IV., dist. 2 A. (apud Catholic Encyclopedia, in loco 
“Sacrament.” This authority says that Otto of Bamberg is “said 
to be the first” to enumerate seven sacraments, but Harnack 
thinks that Hahne has disproved this. cf. Hist. Dog., VI. 202.) 

For further references to the use of the word sacrament, and 
their being the “means of grace” vide Harnack, op. cit., II. 138 
n. 1; pp. 138-148. 


The Doctrine of the Sacraments 185 


perience took on a new significance in Christianity.28 Not 
only did the social breakup of the Roman Empire before the 
Gothic hordes under Alaric provoke St. Augustine to look 
beyond this earth for the “abiding City” ?® but it forced the 
individual Christian to realize that things, in reality, did not 
correspond to the blessed condition which the Gospel rep- 
resented. As Christian experience could not substanti- 
ate the promises of the Gospel here, it had to fall back on 
the promises only, and the hope that in the world to come, 
they might be realized. Doctrine did not agree with experi- 
ence, but because this was an evil and_ sin-stained 
world, the religious man, in his extremity, then, as al- 
ways, persisted in the hope, and as the hope became the all- 
important thing, the exposition of the grounds of this hope 
(theology) and the clinging to it in the face of suffering and 
persecution, the “holding fast the Faith” (doctrine) became, 
as they had not always been, the primary things. 

It is important to realize that here we have an exact paral- 
lel to the development of the formal rite out of the earlier 
and more spontaneous group ceremonial, with its accom- 
panying change of interpretation of the ceremony and the 
transition from a pure myth to the aetiological myth and 
pure tradition. The steps in the change are roughly these: 
first a gradual change in the interpretation of the established 
rites, to conform to growing knowledge and advance in cul- 
ture; next logically, though chronologically probably con- 
temporaneous, a gradual transition in the concepts of the be- 
ing or object of worship and the purpose and effects of the 
rite—the rite itself remaining practically unchanged; and 


28In what immediately follows I wish to acknowledge my 
indebtedness again, and more specifically to Prof. George H. 
Mead. 

29 De Civitatis Dei is so thoroughly imbued with the modern 
spirit of “experience” and the importance of the individual, that 
it may be taken as a terminus a quo for the “modern era.” 


186 Sacraments and Society 


finally, the reaction of these changed conceptions on the rite 
itself, and its gradual modification accordingly, to fit the new 
situation.*° 

This doctrinal transition came first with the transfer, in the 
Donatist controversy, of the emphasis from a pure life to the 
holding of the Catholic Faith. It centered round the 
correct use of the rite, and ended in the traditio symboli, 
which we have seen was an integral part of the Mysteries, 
becoming the teaching of the Creed. The profession of 
faith became the contract of membership.*! The outcome of 
this controversy practically fixed the idea of Baptism, and 
it does not again appear to have come under discussion. The 
earlier controversy over discipline, in the days of Novatian 
and Cyprian, when the validity of heretical baptism was in 
dispute, had left its mark on Catholic doctrine, and brought 
into prominence the importance of confession, as necessary 
for the remission of post-baptismal sin.*? It seems most 
likely that at about this time, during the Trinitarian dispute 
that was raging, and in which Novatian wrote one of the 


30 This is a brief summary of Hartland’s account of the diver- 
gence of religion from magic; cf. Ritual and Belief, Pt. iv., “Di- 
vergence” pp. 128 ff. 


31 Cf. Hatch, op. cit., p. 341. vide etiam Duchesne, op. cit., pp. 
300 ff., (Eng. trans. pp. 301 ff.). 


There can be no doubt that the Catholic decision that the 
efficacy of the sacrament does not depend upon the holiness of 
the minister, was according to facts. In this Dionysius the 
Areopagite, of whom we must speak later, departs from Catholic 
tradition, insisting that the rite administered by the holiest is 
the most potent. (Hccl. Hier. III. iii. 14) 


The ‘“traditio”’ is most clearly evident in the Catechical 
Lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem, and he uses many of the terms 
borrowed (?) from the Greek Mysteries. 


32 Of. supra p. 166 n. 52. vide Cyprian, Ad Donatum, De Lapsis, 
Ep. 67-74. 


The Doctrine of the Sacraments 187 


most important treatises,®* the use of the Triune name with 
triple immersion became fixed in Catholic practice, which, if 
we judge solely from the Acts, had begun with baptism “in 
the name of the Lord.” * 

The addition of various ceremonies to the rite of Baptism 
is one of the things against which the Protestants at the 
time of the Reformaiton, made their strongest protests, 
claiming that they were no part of the “original institution.” 
It was these that Tertullian justified on the ground of “tra- 
dition,’ and he refers to one ceremony, at least, which is of 
particular interest because of its relation to the Mysteries. 
This was the use of milk and honey in the rite of initiation.* 
The use of a mixture of these as a beverage was familiar 
in the Mysteries, and whether directly borrowed by Christi- 
anity or not, its significance in the Christian rite was the 
same.** The other instances of similarity between the Chris- 


83 This was his De Trinitate. “It cannot be questioned that the 
church had not yet attained to the view of the Person of Christ 
which belongs to the developed creed of the post-Nicene theology.” 
(Fausset’s edition, Cambridge, 1909, Intro., p. xxix.) 

84'The triple form appears in Justin, Apol. I. 61; Didache VIL, 
1 and 3; cf. Tertul., De Corona Militis, in which he incidentally 
condemns the use of garlands; Basil, De Spir. Sanc., 27, Jerome, 
Dial. contra Luce., 8. 

85 Adv. Marcion, 1.14. Duchesne argues that since milk and 
honey are the type of the “blessed country” in the Old Testa- 
ment, there is no necessity to look to the pagan Mysteries for 
the introduction of this ceremony. (Origines, p. 335 n. 4, Eng. 
trans. Christ. Worsh. ibid.) This would be quite true if we 
could discover in the O. T. any motive for its introduction. 

36 Sallustius, in De Deis et Mundo 4, says: “After that the 
feeding on milk, as though we were being born again; after 
which come rejoicings and garlands and, as it were, a return 
up to the Gods.” (Murray’s trans., Four Stages, etc., p. 193). ef. 
Bonner, C., ‘“Dionysiac Magic and the Greek Land of Cockaigne” 
in Trans. Amer. Philolog. Ass’n., XLI. (1910) pp.175-185. 

Schrader (Hncyc. Relig. and Eth., 11.27, in loco “Aryan Re- 
ligion’”’) notices the universal use among Aryan peoples of honey 


188 Sacraments and Society 


tian ceremonies and those of the Mysteries, which must 
have had their effect upon subsequent doctrine, are scattered 
all through the literature of the Church.*” 


in connection with ceremonies of the dead. Can it be possible 
that some early conception concerning the bee, or the mysterious- 
ness of the process of making honey connected it with the dead, 
and that in the ceremonies of initiation, the use of honey refers 
to the death of the “old man” as milk does to the birth of the 
“new”? 

Tertullian’s familiarity with all the “idolatrous” ceremonies 
connected with child-birth is shown by the passage in De Anima 
39. 

87 These are too numerous to enumerate, and mention of a few 
must suffice. The Lupercalia, an ancient feast at Rome, per- 
sisted down to the fifth century, when it was abolished by the 
substitution of a Christian Feast, by Pope Gelasius. (Glover, 
op. cit. p. 9). In this ceremony the foreheads of the youths were 
smeared with the blood of the sacrificed goats. (vide Fowler, 
Roman Festivals, pp. 310 ff.,.cf. Plutarch, Romulus, 21; Caesar 61.) 
Tertullian says that “signing” is used in Mithraism (Praes. Haer. 
40.) but Cheetham doubts his testimony as to the fact. (op. cit. 
p. 104.) 


The use of water in rites of purification is as old as the Vendi- 
dad in the Avestan literature: “When he has washed his hands 
three times, thou shalt sprinkle with water the fore part of his 
skull.” (Farg. VII. 40). This particular ceremony is part of the 
“nine nights cleansing’ which is thought to underly the strenu- 
ous ordeals of Mithraism. Apuleius says: “After he had first 
prayed to the gods to be gracious to me, he besprinkled me with 
purest water and cleansed me. (Metam. XI. 23). And in the 
same author we find a clear suggestion of the “chrisom” or white 
robe of the primitive baptismal rite: “Assume therefore a hap- 
pier mien, suiting the white robe thou wearest, and follow the 
procession of the saviour goddess with exultant step.” (ut. supra 
XI. 15; cf. chap. 23). 

There has been much discussion of the term “illuminati” 
(Dwtiopds) used by Justin for the baptised (Apol. I. 61) and 
taken up by later writers. (e.g. Clem. Alex., Paed. I. 6; Cyril 
Jeru., Catech. XIII. 21; Greg. Naz. Orat. XL.). This is probably 
a term from Gnosticism (cf. supra p. 179 ff.) rather than from the 


The Doctrine of the Sacraments 189 


In the Novatian schism and the Donatist controversy we 
find that the dispute arises over the use of the rite and con- 
sequently leads to differences of “doctrine” concerning it. 
Speculation and theory, having gotten into the arena become 
the chief combatants. At first heresy is philosophy, ** but 
soon philosophy becomes the handmaid of orthodoxy. *° 
Fascinating as the study of this process is, we may not pause 
over it, but must hasten on to its final outcome in Neo- 
platonism. 


This process of “intellectualizing’ Christianity was in- 


rites of the Mysteries. vide Reitzenstein, Mysterienrelig. p. 106; 
Hatch, op. cit., p. 295 n. 1 and 2; Cheetham, op. cité., p. 143 n. 47). 

On the whole subject of the ceremonies connected with initia- 
tion, and the significance of the sequence, vide Duchesne, Ori- 
gines, p. 331, Eng. trans. ibid., pp. 295 ff.; van Gennep, op. cit. 
passim; Reinach, op. cit., esp. ‘Mysteries’; Goblet. d’Alviella, 
Int. a Vhist. Gen. des Religs., (Bruxelles, 1887) pp. 145-156. 

388Tertullian calls philosophy the ”root of heresy” (Praes. 
Haeres. 7 ff.) yet he uses the arguments of Parmenides and 
Aristotle to prove the reality of Christ’s body against the Doce- 
tists, in De Carne Christi. Clement of Alexandria gives a sum- 
mary Classification of heresies in Strom. VII. 17 end, and Hip- 
polytus attempted to prove that all heresies had drawn their 
material from heathen philosophers. His Philosophumena is a 
mine of information on early Greek philosophy (vide Burnet, 
J.. Early Greek Philosophy (Lond. 1892), pp. 182 ff., p. 374.) 
And the recent discovery of the later books of his Refutation 
of all Heresies finally gave the key to the authorship of the 
former, which is its first book, (cf. Kriger, op. cit. p. 333 ff.) 
Clement shows the term “orthodox” or ‘orthodoxy’ in process 
of formation, though not yet clearly articulated. (vide Strom. 
I, 48, 1 and 45, 6). In St. Thomas’ Summa we find Aristotle 
“canonized”? as THE Philosopher. 

39 Hatch says: “The second century was one of conflicting 
ideas. Greek philosophical thinking attaches itself to the faith, 
and is opposed by the older ideas. The result is a compromise, 
in which the conservatives disappear, having accepted the ‘ten- 
dency to speculate. Those who cling to the older non-philo- 
sophical view become the ‘first heretics,’ Ebionites, Nazaraeans, 
ete.” (op. cit., pp. 130-134). 


190 Sacraments and Society 


evitable and it is endless. We are today in the midst of 
the same process, which is always opposed as being a “nov- 
elty” and yet is never new because eternal. The earliest 
Greek mythology preceded the beginnings of that new scep- 
ticism which rested on experience. Mythology, at least in its 
classic form, was itself a sort of intellectual system, which 
appealed to reason, but did not criticise its own premises. 
These had come down with the cultus out of the prehistoric 
past. Greek philosophy began by appealing to life experience 
and proceeded to criticize the explanations offered by myth- 
ology, but continued to accept its premises as “ultimate.” It 
was not till an incipient science appeared, with its new em- 
phasis on the experience of the individual observer, that the 
technique of criticising premises was developed. But the 
attack of science was so determined and so powerful, laying 
its violent hands, as it did, on the most treasured possession 
of mankind, and attempting to disprove the very existence 
of the gods, that the moral and religious needs of man 
provoked him to revolt against the conclusions of science, 
and casting reason to the winds to fall back on the con- 
solations offered by the Mysteries. 


This marked the end of the first period of transition, and 
resulted in a change of front on the part of philosophy 
itself. As we have said, philosophy became “a way of life,” 
and this, at least, it was insisted, must rest on reason. The 
Stoic “Logos” was the “soul” of the universe, and dwelt in 
the hearts of all men; Plato’s ideal “wise man” became the 
“man in the street” of the Stoics. But the ideal man of 
Pythagoras had been nurtured by the “mystic communion” 
of the Oriental Mysteries, as well as on the “fruit of reason” 
and the Neoplatonist philosopher became a Mystic. For it 
was through the union of reason with emotion, as repre- 
sented by philosophy and the Mysteries, that Neoplatonism 
was born. Of course there was conflict and many vagaries 
developed, of which the Auction of Lives of Lucian and the 


The Doctrine of the Sacraments 191 


miracle mongering of Apollonius of Tyanna give us a 
glimpse, but Neoplatonism won the day and dominated the 
philosophical thought of Christendom, till Bacon signalled 
the beginning of another reaction which found its climax 
in the scepticism of Hume. 


And so the cycles repeat themselves, from superstition to 
sophistication, and then by a sort of Nemesis, back again 
from one extreme to the other. Did not Romanticism follow 
close on the steps of the “Aufklarung” and have we not had 
in our own day the revolt of Christian Science against 
“Liberal” Protestantism? 


Epicureans and Stoics both denied, in theory at least, the 
possibility of a resurrection and a future life, while the 
Mysteries and Christianity promised immortality. Christian- 
ity today is being forced, slowly but surely to come back to 
earth from that haven of rest in the heavens, which was for 
St. Augustine the only abiding city. Pragmatism, wherever 
it has a quarrel with Idealism, appeals to experience, and 
modern psychology, ignoring the “soul” as an intellectual fig- 
ment, refers all our mental life to the practical needs of the 
body, and to a “natural” desire for the preservation and en- 
richment of life here and now. Plato put the world of 
reality beyond the heavens so long ago that we have forgotten 
that it was not always there. And Plato made another 
significant change when he thought of God as infinite and 
unlimited, because to him a limit seemed to be a negation of 
perfection. But for the earlier Greek thought, for the 
philosophers before Plato, boundlessness or the lack of some 
definite limits meant unreality and suggested that background 
of “not-being” out of which all things came into being. And 
if we were absolutely honest with ourselves, should we 
not have to admit that for us it is the same? But Plato had 
the advantage of a stock of “stuff” out of which things could 
be made, and for him it was being only, pure being which 


192 Sacraments and Society 


was immaterial and without limit. *° This conception passed 
straight into Deism, and the Theistic controversialists of the 
eighteenth century accepted the Deist’s premises and fought 
him on his own ground. Asa matter of fact, this particular 
premise has never been criticised in Christian theology and 
the half-hearted attempts to argue for a “divine immanence” 
as well, indicate that the advocates of “immanence” them- 
selves accept it too. It is because science has discovered that 
the life process appears to have gone on unhindered from 
the first protozoa to man, the highest vertebrate, that 
Christianity has been forced, in spite of this old tradition, 
and against its will, to concede that God is found working 
within the material elements of his world at all, though it has 
always taught that He is at work in the hearts of men. 
*Twas ever thus; for the objection to the Copernican view of 
the universe was not that it made the earth revolve round the 
sun: that was a merely secondary matter. The trouble was 
that it robbed the heavenly bodies of their “heavenly quality,” 
which theology had fastened upon them out of the philosophy 
of Plato and Aristotle, and made them into ponderable masses 
of matter, subject to earthly laws! But before the relentless 
facts, demonstrable beyond a peradventure, theology quietly 
submitted to Kepler and Newton, though it had hounded 
Galileo to death, and to-day theology is again rebelling against 
biology and adapting itself to the doctrine of evolution at one 
and the same time. 


Protagorus suggested the only solution: theory must be 
adjusted to facts, as the experience of the individual finds 
them to be, and after all, “man is the measure of all things’— 
at least in so far as his judgment of them is concerned. But 


40 Proclus seems to have been the first to suggest that God 
created the universe out of nothing, for he made even matter 
proceed from God. 7 yev yao tAy Vaoxelusevov otoa AaVTMV 
EY TOU naVTMV Gitlov meoTADe- (Stoich. Theol. 72). 


The Doctrine of the Sacraments 193 


let us not forget that the courageous dictum of Descartes 
“Cogito ergo sum!” took for granted much that present day 
“behaviorists” deny, and besides it ended in the imprison- 
ment of the universe within the “brain case” of the indi- 
vidual, for both Berkeley and Hume, and neither was re- 
markably successful in getting it out again. 


There seems to be but one point of reconciliation at which 
cultus and philosophy may agree, and science and religion 
forget their age-long differences ; and that lies at the heart of 
religious worship, in the use of the sacred rite. 


After this somewhat lengthy digression from our imme- 
diate subject, let us return to the consideration of the en- 
trance of Neoplatonism into Christian theology through St. 
Augustine. It is so generally admitted that whatever 
philosophy Augustine had was that of the Neoplatonic school, 
that we need only mention the fact as a point of departure for 
our argument. It is also universally insisted upon that he 
practically determined the form of the theology of the West, 
and exerted a profound influence on Greek thought as well. #4 
Perhaps it is not so generally recognized that in St. August- 
ine, if my understanding of his position is correct, there were 
to be found the two conflicting elements which led to the 
controversies of the Reformation—(this much must be true, 
for he is the authority to which both sides appeal )—and also 
an inherent contradiction which finally appears in its clear- 
ness in the disputes concerning the “theory” of the Sacra- 
ments. 


411t is essential to our purpose to notice at this point that the 
theology of the Hast was practically fixed at almost the same 
period, through the influence of the “Three Coppadocians” as they 
are called, Basil of Caesarea, his younger brother Gregory of 
Nyasa and Gregory of Nazianzus, a short time Bishop of Con- 
stantinople. The “authority” for the East, who occupies a simi- 
lar prestige to that of Aquinas in the West, is John of Damascus 
(obit. cir. 754) who sums up the doctrine of the Cappadocians. 


194 Sacraments and Society 


The “dualism” of faith and works, which is thought by 
some to be present even in the New Testament, dominates 
St. Augustine’s thought. It never comes to an open con- 
tradiction, but he is ever under the pressure of the problem 
of its reconciliation. He had himself experienced the two 
realities of which he writes so much, first the sinfulness of 
man’s mortal nature, of which he made his immortal ‘‘Con- 
fessions” but greater and more powerful than this, the 
reality of God’s saving “grace.” His philosophy insists that 
God is Supreme, while his experience insists just as 
vehemently that his own will is his own. And so we have in 
his writings the Sovereignty of God and the Freedom of 
man’s will. Against Pelagius he argues for the necessity of 
divine assistance if man hopes to overcome his sinful nature 
and win salvation and eternal life, and against the Donatists 
he argues for the reality of the saving grace bestowed in the 
sacraments, in the face of absolute proof of apostacy and 
moral depravity. And all the while in his moral treatises he 
insists that man’s will is free and that his salvation depends 
upon his “corresponding” with the will of God in willing 
obedience. Sin, he finds, is inherent in man’s corrupt nature, 
and yet righteousness finds its only true expression in the will 
of man which is free. Is guilt “imputed” to man, for the 
sin of Adam, in which he had no part? Yes. Is sin the 
action of man’s will, in asserting itself in opposition to the 
Will of God? Yes, decidedly yes. In other words sin is 
both “natural” and “ethical.” For the healing of the one, 
which is in no sense the fault of man, some power other 
than that of man himself is necessary. This is mere logic. 
But for the reformation of man’s wicked will, man himself, 
and he alone possesses the power, since this is surely a matter 
of his own responsibility, and even the omnipotence of God 
will not, nay can not, coerce the freedom of man’s will, and 
God has Himself limited His omnipotence by its very gift 
to man. This, then, is the paradox which St. Augustine 


The Doctrine of the Sacraments 195 


bequeathed to Catholic and Protestant theology alike, but 
which any man can discover for himself if he will, in his 
own experience, as St. Augustine had done. 


For the bestowal of that almost “substantial” thing which 
Augustine, following New Testament usage, called “grace” 
the Sacraments were divinely provided in the Church. . But 
of what possible use can sacraments be, if man is free to sin, 
even against grace; and if the sovereign decrees of God are 
immutable, how can man’s acts have any effect in undoing the 
salvation which the Church confers through the divinely in- 
stituted means of Grace? This was Augustine’s problem, 
but he was the child of his age, and it was not of his own 
making. 

Neoplatonism attempted to furnish an antidote for the 
pagan Mysteries, as Gnosticism had attempted to overcome 
the fatalism of astrology. As a substitute for a mechanical 
ritual formalism, with its non-moral view of salvation, Neo- 
platonism offered a moral asceticism coupled with a “spirit- 
ual” mysticism. The conflict of the two systems raged in the 
breast of Augustine, the Neoplatonic philosopher and 
Christian Mystic. But he left it still undecided, and it fell 
to the lot of an unknown writer of the fifth century, in all 
probability, *? to carry the reconciliation one step farther, 
by suggesting that while the Sacraments were valuable as a 
means to an end, the ultimate end was the mystic union of 
the will of man with the Will of God, and when this had been 
attained, the sacraments and all the rest of the Ecclesiastical 
machinery would have fulfilled its usefulness. 


Among the mysteries of literature, none seems to be more 


42 The dates given by Bishop Westcott are between 480 and 520 
A.D. (Contemporary Review, May 1867, “Dionysius the Areopa- 
gite’, p. 7.) The limits are set absolutely by the appearance of 
the writings at a Conference held at Constantinople in 532 
(Mansi, Concilia XIII. col. 821) and the terminology of the de- 
crees of the Council of Chalcedon, 451 which occurs in them. 


196 Sacraments and Society 


profound than that which surrounds the author of the writ- 
ings which passed under the name of Dionysius the Areo- 
pagite. *® Again we are forced to pass over the interesting 
details of the problem, over which we would fain tarry, to the 
outcome in the Catholic doctrine of the Sacraments, all the 
essential elements of which can be traced to this source. The 
conflict of the two ideals which could not be reconciled by 
Augustine was resolved in a formal way by Dionysius, by 
the subordination of the mechanism of the mysteries to an 
individualistic contemplative mysticism. “The peculiar 
mysticism of the Apostles Paul and John was less intelligible 
to the early Middle Ages than the Christianized Neoplatonism 
of Dionysius the Areopagite; and even before Dionysius, 
Augustine * * * * conveys the Enneads by handfuls 
into his theological treatises.” ** The teachings of this anon- 
ymous or pseudonymous writer reflect the influence of an 
age of transition. He gathers up from Neoplatonism what 


438 Whoever he was, he may be called the flower of Neoplaton- 
ism. He ‘sums up the work of Plotinus and Proclus, and gives 
them a Christian setting. The works of Dionysius have been 
published in the English translation of John Parker, (London, 
1889) and portions, i.e. ‘Mystical Theology” in the Jour. of 
Speculative Philos. XXII. (1888), pp. 395-400 by Thos. Davidson, 
and in Mysticism, Its true nature and value, by A. B. Sharpe, 
(London, n. d.—1910?). For the discussion of the identification 
of the writer, vide Smith and Wace, Dict. of Christian Biog., I. 
841 ff., and the article of Bp. Westcott mentioned above; some 
notes on date with bibliography in Harnack, Hist. Dog., IV. 282 
n. 2, and on Dionysius’ doctrinal system ibid. p. 338 n. 1; Inge, 
W. R., “Permanent Influence of Neo-Platonism on Xty.” In 
Amer. Jour. Theol., TV. (1900) pp. 328-344. 
44Inge ut supra, p. 329. Though Dr. Inge does not mention it, 
the resemblance between the saying of Plotinus “For all things 
strive after that (i.e. The One) and aspire after it by necessity 
of nature, as if having a divination that without it they cannot 
be” (Ennead V. 5, 12) and the famous saying of St. Augustine: 
“For Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until 
it repose in Thee” (Confess., I. 1.) is most significant. 


The Doctrine of the Sacraments 197 


doctrines he deems to be of lasting value, or fitted to the 
peculiar exigencies of a defence of the Catholic faith, and by 
attaching them to a definite creed, and an organized hier- 
archal system gives to them a definiteness and compelling 
force which they did not before possess. #* And his author- 
ity is quoted by subsequent theologians as quite final and 
decisive. What he did was nothing new or startling, but he 
succeeded in doing it in an unusually clever and successful 
way which immediately met with the approval of his time. *¢ 
This sudden and lasting popularity was not the result of any 
mere coincidence, we may be sure, but demonstrates the fact 
that in his attempt to reconcile a newly evolved system of 
thought with the established rites of religion Dionysius 
supplied a vital need of his day. 

The extant works attributed to Dionysius include four 
short treatises: On the Heavenly Hierachy, On the Eccle- 
siastical Hierarchy, On Divine Names, On Mystical Theol- 
ogy; and ten or eleven letters, one of which appears only in 
Latin, and is supposed by some to have been added by 
Erigina to his translation of the Areopagite. In the Hier- 
archies we have the means, the machinery as it were, by which 
God communicates Himself to man. In the Divine Names 
is set forth the unique and transcendental nature of God, 
who gives to each order of beings its proper share of the 
divine likeness, and assigns to each its share in the commun- 
ication of the divine gifts to the order below it. The Mystic 
Theology marks out the reverse path to that shown in the 





45 cf. Westcott, wt supra p. 25-26. 

46 cf. Sharpe, ut supra p. 204. Harnack says (Hist. Dog., III. 
253) that Clement of Alexandria had already suggested the 
heavenly hierarchies in Strom. VI. 18, 107, while for Ignatius 
there had existed an earthly hierarchy centered in the Bishop, 
but Dionysius was the first to relate the two and combine them 
into a single comprehensive system. The heavenly order of the 
Areopagite obviously resembles that of Valentinus, however, and 
is on the “confines of the Alexandrian’s speculation.” 


198 Sacraments and Society 


Hierarchies, and reveals the way by which the human soul 
ascends to mystic “union” with God. *” These three elements 
correspond with those of which he makes the Hierarchy to 
consist: (1) a sacred order (taCic); (2) a sacred science 
(éxtotyun) ; (3) a sacred operation (évéoyeta). * 

“The Areopagite starts with metaphysics, but only, like 
Proclus, to kick down the ladder by which he mounted. He is 
the prince of mystics, because he expounds the rationale of 
his belief with perfect simplicity, without the least attempt 
to compromise with theology.” *® The Neoplatonic system 
which Dionysius appropriates from Proclus contains five 
elements which reappear plainly in the Hierarchies: 

1. Progressive revelation from the Infinite. 

2. Triads in systematic subordination. 

3. The sole purpose and end is union with “The One.” 

4, Evil is the negation of good and to be overcome by 

positive activity. 

5. Perfect being transcends all limitation. 

It is to be noticed that this is not a philosophical system at 
all, but a purely religious one. Contemplation of the divine 
essence is not an intellectual transaction but an affair of the 
spirit. But between the supernatural Savior and man there 
is interposed a long system of intermediaries, both heavenly 
and earthly, the purpose of which is to enable the soul to 
climb from earth, by short steps and gradual transitions, up 
to the Only Good. *° 

After the occasional use of the terminology of the pagan 
Mysteries by earlier writers, we should not be surprised to 
find them in Dionysius, but it is perhaps a little startling to 
discover that there is no longer any hesitation about their 


47 This summary is from the article in Smith and Wace, wut 
supra. 

48 cf, Cel. Hier. III. 1. 

49 Bigg, Chas, Neoplatonism, (London, 1895) p. 343. 

50 cf. Bigg, op. cit., p. 342. Vide Cel. Hier. III. 2. 


The Doctrine of the Sacraments 199 


use, but that the whole system has passed over bodily into 
the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. Even the more familiar titles 
for the sacred ministry are displaced by new terms, as are 
the simpler names of Baptism and the Eucharist. The Dea- 
con has become Leiturgos, the Presbyter, Hierus, and the 
Bishop is now the Hierarch, and in the three grades of the 
“spiritual ascent” we have the familiar terms of the Mys- 
teries, purification (xaBeagots), initiation (uinots) and per- 
fection (teAetwois). For Baptism we have “a holy birth in 
God” (H Seta yévvnots) and the Eucharist becomes the goal 
of perfection, THE Initiation, par excellence (tedstav 
teksty). The Triple “hierarchy” of the ecclesiastical sys- 
tem includes in the first rank or “order” the three sacra- 
ments of Baptism, Eucharist and Unction, the latter being 
remarkable as the highest of the three.®4 In the second rank 
come the three grades of the sacred ministry; and in the 
third, the three classes of the laity, Catechumens, communi- 
cants and “‘contemplatives.” 

We must remark that the order of the classification is 
rather confusing. The first grade of Hierarchy is the high- 
est, and so on down, but the order in each grade is reversed, 
and reads up. The whole sequence of nine “ranks” arranged 
in their relative order of superiority, beginning with the low- 
est would be: Catechumen, Communicant, Contemplator ; 
Deacon, Priest, Bishop; Baptism, Eucharist, Unction, and 
through these downward comes the divine revelation.” 


51 Here is to be discerned, no doubt, the direct influence of 
Gnosticism, which placed much emphasis on anointing. 

Troelsch, (Protestantism and Progress, N. Y. 1912, p. 91) says: 
“Once the supreme miracle of the incarnation of God in Jesus 
and in the Bible is present, the continuation of this miracle in 
the hierarchy and the sacraments is a logical consequence; 
nothing short of the complete deification of the Church as an 
Institution can really prevent the humanization of the doctrines 
and truths.” 

52 The ranks are given in Eccl. Hier. V. i. 6 and VI. i. 1. The 


200 Sacraments and Society 


The “Hierarch” (Bishop) is made the source of all spiri- 
tual gifts in the church, and only through his offices can any 
of three Sacraments be observed, for by him alone can the 
holy oil of the ‘““Muron” be consecrated, and this is neces- 
sary for the hallowing of the font for Baptism,®* for the 
consecration of the altar, on which alone the Eucharist may 
be offered,** and finally it is essential in the rites of ordain- 
ing and consecrating both Priests and Deacons.®> Material 
symbols, no matter how lowly, are made the means of medi- 
ating divine grace, and “we are led by sensible figures to the 
Divine contemplation.” °*® But we must beware of a pitfall 
here, in drawing our conclusions from the doctrinal state- 
ments of Dionysius, for the material symbols, though they 
lead to contemplation, do not themselves confer the “deifica- 
tion” which is the desired end of the whole system, for this 
comes only through the contemplation itself : 

“And this is the common goal of every Hierarchy,—the 
clinging love towards God and Divine things, divinely and 
uniformly ministered ; and previous to this, the complete and 
unswerving removal of things contrary, the knowledge of 
things as they are in themselves; the vision and science of 
sacred truth; the inspired communication of the uniform per- 
fection of The One Itself, as far as attainable; the banquet 
of contemplation, nourishing intelligibly, and deifying every 
man elevated towards it.” °” 


procession of purification and enlightenment from above down- 
ward, in Hccl. Hier. V. i. 3; cf. Cel. Hier. III. 1; VIII. 2. 

58 Hccl. Hier. IV. iii. 10. 

54 ibid. V. i. 5. 

55 ut supra cf. I. ii. and iii. 

56 Eccl. Hier. I. ii; cf. VI. i. 2 and Cel. Hier. II. 3. 

57 Eccl. Hier. I. iii. The meaning is not unambiguous, but the 
sense appears, from the whole plan, to demand that deification 
be understood as the final result, reached only in contemplation, 
and symbolized by the unction of the Muron. 


The Doctrine of the Sacraments 201 


It is remarkable, in the light of subsequent controversy, to 
find that the familiar words of the Institution of the Eucha- 
rist are not even referred to! The important thing in the 
Eucharist is the union which it represents, a union between 
God and the faithful in which even the departed have their 
share at every celebration of this sacred rite.°* The sacred 
“symbols” “signify Christ” present, but not at all in the 
sense in which we usually understand such an expression. It 
is not the sacred BODY and BLOOD of Christ, the pres- 
ence of which is insisted upon, but the presence of His 
Divine Life in the life of every faithful Christian. 

“And bear this religiously in mind, that when the wor- 
shipful symbols have been placed on the divine altar, through 
which (symbols) the Christ is signified and partaken, there 
is inseparably present the reading of the register of the 
holy persons, signifying the indivisible conjunction of their 
supermundane and sacred union with him.” 5° 

“For he (the Hierarch) delineates in these things under 
sensible forms, our intelligible life in figures, by brining to 
view the Christ Jesus from the Hidden within the Divine 
Being, out of love to man made like unto us by the all-perfect 
incarnation of our race, from us and advancing to the divided 
condition of ourselves without ehange from the essential 
One, and calling the human race, through this beneficent love 
of man, into participation with Himself and His own good 
things, provided we are united to His most Divine Life by 
our assimilaition to it, as far as possible; and by this in very 
truth, we shall have been perfected, as partakers of God and 
of Divine things.” ®° 

The problem of a later age, as to what was received in 
the Eucharist, does not seem yet to have emerged. The 


58 Eccl. Hier. III. iii. 3, 8 and 12. The Eucharist is called also 
ovvaséic: 

59 ibid. III. iii. 9. 

60 ibid. III. ili. 13 


202 Sacraments and Society 


reference here seems to be merely to the Incarnation in its 
objective and historical aspect. The use of the rite is central 
and indispensable, but it requires a fit preparation for its 
reception, if it is to be effective in bringing about a union 
with Christ, since the reception of the benefits conferred in 
and through the rite is conditioned on the spiritual fitness 
of the recipient: 


“. . . the most Divine and common and peaceful dis- 
tribution of one and the same, both Bread and Cup, enjoins 
upon them a godly fellowship in character, as having a fel- 
lowship in food, and recalls to their memory the most 
Divine Supper, and arch-symbol of the rites performed, 
agreeably with which the Founder of the symbols himself 
excludes, most justly, him who had supped with Him on 
holy things, not piously and in a manner suitable to his 
character; teaching at once, clearly and Divinely, that the 
approach to the Divine Mysteries with a sincere mind con- 
fers, on those who draw nigh, the participation in a gift 
according to their own character.” ** 


There is an enigmatic passage in the Divine Names which 
has been interpreted by some Roman commentators as 
referring to the death of the Blessed Virgin, but it is not 
unlikely that it was intended to apply to the Eucharist. It 


61 Hccl. Hier. III. iii. 1. The unworthy and the uninitiated are 
excluded from the Holy Mysteries. (ut supra III. iii. 7; VII. ii. 
3). This and the use of the expression “holy things” which 
still is prominent in the ‘elevation’ of the Greek Liturgies, 
appear in almost identical form in the pagan Mysteries. At 
Eleusis, the “unclean” were always warned to withdraw, in a 
formula, the name of which, TOO OONOLC is still used in the 
Greek Liturgies for the dismissal of the unbaptised, and the 
formula “holy things to the holy” (rq * Ayva tov ‘ Aytov) is men- 
tioned by Apuleius in the form: “Make way for the holy things.” 
(Metam. XI. 9). On the exclusion of the unworthy, cf. Foucart, 
Myst. @Eleu., pp. 311-312. 


The Doctrine of the Sacraments 203 


speaks of “the spectacle of the body which was the beginning 
of life and the recipient of God.” ®& 

It is quite impossible to summarize the teaching of Dio- 
nysius satisfactorily in so brief a space as this, but I believe 
that I have truly represented his teaching about the Sacra- 
ments. It was Dionysius who first gave a clear and definite 
expression to the “instrumental” view of the Church’s sacred 
rites and fitted them into an ordered system. In this he may 
be called the first of the Schoolmen. But he gives a place to 
but four of the seven rites which eventually were raised to 
the dignity of Sacraments, and, what is most peculiar of all 
he made them all of but temporary importance, as means of 
reaching the final goal of Contemplation. ® 

As the architect of the Capitol at Washington faced his 
creation toward the broad Potomac, whither he expected the 
city to extend, and failed to anticipate the peculiarly practical 
needs of the generations to come, so Dionysius the Areopagite 
planned the structure of his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy to meet 
the religious needs of his day as he saw them, but the sub- 
sequent need of the Church led to the growth of the sacra- 
mental system in the opposite direction. The later School- 
men of East and West built on the foundation he had laid, 
but the final edifice was not of his planning.®* The Mystic 


62 Ext thv Veav tov Cwaoxtxov xat Oeodoyov owpatos: 
63 And for this reason Unction becomes superior to the Eu- 


charist. 

64 St. Thomas Aquinas may be said to be the doctrinal authority 
of the West, and in the third part of his Swmma, which treats of 
the Sacraments, there are thirty-one explicit references to the 
Areopagite. For the sake of reference I append this list: The 
references are all to Part III. with its Supplement. 

Quest.61, 4, ad 1 EHecl. Hier. 5 


63, 2, ii. Eccl. Hier. 2 
64, 1, i. Eccl. Hier. 5 
64, 6, ¢. Eccl. Hier. 1 
ibid. Epis. 8 


65, 1, iii. Eccl. Hier. 2 and 5 


204 Sacraments and Society 


Way, in which Dionysius was the pioneer, is essentially 
subjective, personal and individualistic. The final goal of 
the discipline of life, as he saw it, was the rejection of all 





66, 3, i. Eccl. Hier, 2 
oy BE AS VE Eccl. Hier. 5 and 7 
67, 1, ¢. Cel. Hier. 7 
67,1, ad 1 Eccl. Hier. 6 
67, 1, ad 2 Eccl. Hier. 2 
BAY BE Eccl. Hier. 2 
ibid. Eccl. Hier. Preface, last part. 
(fee bee Eccl. Hier. 5 
71, 4, ad 3 Eccl. Hier. 2 
12,°2,°00.08 Eccl. Hier. 4 
75,1, ¢. Eccl. Hier. 3 
78, 4, ad 4 Eccl. Hier. 7 
78, 9, ii. Eccl. Hier. 3 
18,59; 1Baus Cel. Hier. 2 
88, 4, ¢. (1) Eccl. Hier. 3 
83, 4, ¢. (5) EHccl. Hier. 3 
Supp. Quest. 29, 1, ii. Eccl. Hier. 3 and 5 
34, 1, c. Eccl. Hier. 5 
36, 1, c. Eccl. Hier. 3 
36, 3, il. Eccl. Hier. 4 
Ot, 7k, vee Eccl, Hier. 3 
Bee Ae FE Eccl. Hier. 3 
37, 2, ¢ Eccl. Hier. 3 and 5 
37, 2, ¢. Eccl. Hier. 3 and 5 
37, 4, vi. Eccl. Hier. 5 


Here is ample evidence of the extent to which Dionysius has 
influenced the theological doctrine of the West, so far as the 
Sacraments are concerned. 


Aquinas was known as “The Angelic Doctor” and is referred 
to for the “doctrine” of Angels, but this he got en bloc from the 
Areopagite. We have not mentioned the Heavenly or Celestial 
Hierarchy, since it does not fall strictly within the subject of our 
study, but it is of interest to note, in passing how widely this 
treatise has influenced popular thought concerning the Angels. 
It underlies some of the greatest productions of English litera- 
ture, specifically: the first is Spencer’s “Hymne of Heavenly 
Beautie,” especially lines 2. to 105. Later the same grouping of 


The Doctrine of the Sacraments 205 


things belonging to this earthly life, and the loss of self in 
mystic union with the Great Unknown. “And so it is that 
he is unable to see in their full beauty and strength, those 





the Angelic Host is found in Milton’s Paradise Lost, (Bk. V. 
line 772 ff.; cf. line 600 ff., 840-841; Bk. X. line 85 ff., 460.) 
Shakespeare had the same in mind, in all probability, when he 
wrote: 
“Still choiring the young-eyed Cherubins.” 

(Mer. of Ven., V. 1, 62). 

and 
“O, a Cherubin thou wast that did preserve me.” 
(Tempest, I. 2, 152). 


for the Areopagite introduces the idea of “guardian angels.” 
(Cel. Hier. IX. 3). 

The Holy Orthodox Church looks to John of Damascus, as the 
Roman Church does to Aquinas. The “Longer Catechism” of the 
Eastern Church, which is “authoritative” rests its sacramental 
teaching on John of Damascus, citing him in Question 340. (cf. 
Schaff, Creeds, II. 497). The quotation is from his Exposition of 
the Orthodox Faith, Bk. 1V., chap. 13, sec. 7. If we refer to 
this treatise, we find that chapter 13 treats ‘Concerning the holy 
and immaculate Mysteries of the Lord’ and there is another 
chapter, the ninth, which treats specifically of Faith and 
Baptism. 

An examination of the Hzposition reveals the fact that John 
of Damascus calls Dionysius “the holy Dionysius” (I. 9), “the 
Divine Dionysius” (I, 12), “that most holy and sacred and 
gifted theologian” (II. 3), “the divinely-inspired disciple’ of the 
Apostle, (III. 6), and finally “the blessed Dionysius.” (III. 19) 

These five passages refer directly to his writings, as follows: 

I. 9 to Div. Names. 2, 3 and 4. 

I, 12 to Div. Names. 1. 

II, 3 to Cel. Hier. 6. 

III. 6 to Div. Names 2. 

III. 19 to Epis. 4. 

But the whole of this treatise reflects the writings of Dionysius, 
whom he treats as of equal authority with the Cappadocians, of 
whose work (especially Basil, De Spir. Sanc., Greg. Naz. “The 
Thologian,”’ Orat., and Gregory Nyssae, De. Bap., and Orat. Cate- 
chet.) John furnished a summary. The fourth book makes 


206 Sacraments and Society 


instincts and faculties of man, by which he is impelled toward 
social combination and the divine institutions by whch these 
instincts and faculties are sanctioned and supported.”® 
Dionysius laid his emphasis on contemplative mysticism, but 
the Sacramental system, as it subsequently developed under 
the influence of a truly Catholic ecclecticism, produced a 
well balanced mechanism for combining a living social 
expression in outward worship and a life of human helpful- 
ness, with that peculiarly individual emotional experience 
which leads to a personal conviction of the fellowship of 
the Holy Spirit and of communion with the Infinite. °° 

The doctrines usually associated with the Eucharist, and 
round which the controversies between the Catholic and 
Protestant theologians have raged, have no necessary con- 
nection with the rite itself, and so have no particular interest 
for us in our study, which is devoted to the continuous use 
of the rite itself in spite of these doctrinal disputes. They 
grew ‘out of the purely theological discussions concerning 
the Person and Nature of Christ, which ended in the pro- 
mulgation of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan and Chalce- 
donian formulas of the “orthodox” faith. Catholics who 


practically no reference to Dionysius, however, a fact which sup- 
ports our contention that the actual progress of doctrine was 
away from the scheme of the Areopagite, though it started with 
his premises. The logical realism of the West, never found place 
in the Eastern formularies, and the Roman doctrine that the act 
of “consecration” in the Eucharist took place at the pronouncing 
of the words of Institution has been stoutly combatted by Eastern 
theologians, who maintain, in the spirit of Dionysius, that the 
Epiklesis is the central, though not the solely essential part of 
the rite. 


65 Westcott, op. cit., p. 27. 


66 For some remarks on “the psychological significance of legal 
and ceremonial religion’? which touch on the problem of the 
relation of the individual to social religion, vide Galloway, 
Principles of Religious Development, (London, 1909), pp. 185 ff. 


The Doctrine of the Sacraments 207 


believe in “transubstantiation” and Calvinists who deny any 
real effects to the reception of the Sacrament, Anglicans 
and Lutherans who believe in a “real presence” but who may 
affirm or deny that its reception is in any tanglble way con- 
nected with the material “symbols” but depends on the faith 
of the recipient, all agree in the continuous observance of the 
sacred rite of the Holy Communion, though their theological 
bickerings may stop them from actually uniting in the formal 
ritual of the Sacramental rite. 


If I have succeeded in demonstrating the fact that any 
and all doctrine is wholly secondary to the continued use of 
the rite itself, and derived from the determination to per- 
severe in this use in the face of changing intellectual ideas, I 
will have done all I had hoped. The development of some 
form of doctrine was inevitable, and its continued revision 
and readjustment is just as inevitable. But the actual living 
rite, living in the religious practice of the Church, is the 
primary thing. Given this, and given also a belief in a 
transcendent God and in an infallible record preserved in the 
New Testament, *’ and though for nearly a millenium there 
was constant growth and expansion, the final triumph of 
Aristotelian philosophy, coupled with a relentless logic, was 
bound eventually to force all divergence into a fixed and 
changeless uniformity, patterned after the ideals of reality 
and perfection. The Schoolmen did their work well, and 
it has satisfied the demands of nearly another millenium, If 
today, however, there is a growing feeling that the day of its 
power has come to an end, it is not because the Sacraments 
themselves have ceased to be of value, but only because we 





67 In his Civ. Dei, XI. 6, St. Augustine speaks of the Scriptures 
as “sacred and infallible’ and he bases his doctrine on them. 
This conception was present among Jewish writers, and is seen 
emerging in Josephus, Cont. Apion, II. 15 ff. 


208 Sacraments and Society 


have outgrown the conceptions on which their doctrinal 
exposition has been made to rest. ® 


68 “We see, at any rate, that it is a theological readjustment 
which is required and not one in Natural Science. Moreover it 
is a theological readjustment in the highest sense conservative 
and positive.” Waggett, P.N., Religion and Science. (London, 
1909), p. 89. 


XII 
THE VALUE OF THE SACRAMENTS 


AFTER this lengthy consideration of the origin and develop- 
ment of religious rites in general and the relation of the 
Sacraments to this larger subject, we find ourselves face to 
face with the real problem of the whole matter, which is: 
do the Sacraments supply any real need of human nature, 
do they serve any useful purpose in religion, do they answer 
the cry of the seeker after God and righteousness, or are 
they merely a relic of barbarism, the stronghold of a dying 
superstition and meet only to be banished from enlightened 
and ethical Christianity? 

We can not deny the undoubted fact that for well nigh 
1900 years the Sacraments have continued to dominate the 
Christian cult and have withstood the strain of changing 
environment, of growing culture, and for full four centuries 
the rising tide of theological controversy and intellectual at- 
tack. Surely such “survival” can not be the result of mere 
chance; there must be some element of “fitness” to account 
for it! We do not continue to do everything that our fore- 
fathers did, we are not victims of that vis inertiae which 
stifles the spirit of progress in the savage breast; nor do we 
adopt everything that comes to us out of the past. There 
seems to be, a priori, some probability that these rites have 
continued in use through all these years because they did 
something that needed to be done. We may permit ourselves 
the use of the term a priori since we must come to grips with 
the intellectual problem which the facts force upon us, but we 
need to find something more than a merely intellectual basis 


209 


210 Sacraments and Society 


for our judgment of the worth of the Sacraments, if we hope 
to establish this worth beyond the power of speculative doubt 
and disparagement. The whole course of our argument has 
been directed toward the discovery of a positive and funda- 
mental basis in human nature on which the use of religious 
rites may be shown to rest, and it appears at last, after our 
search, to lie in the physiological constitution of human per- 
sonality. These are high sounding words, but the reality 
which they represent in technical terms is most simple. 
Instincts and emotions and reflex reactions, stimuli and 
inhibition are terms of the schools, but language and gesture 
are the common heritage of us all. Perhaps we have never 
thought much about it, but the wonderful thing about lan- 
guage is that it produces the same effect, in a general way, ” 
on everyone who hears it. If the hearer understands it at 
all, the effect is determined beforehand, the only condftion 
being that both the speaker and the hearer use words in the 
same sense, and this requisite is supplied by “convention.” * 
The language may be any that you will “chacun son goitt.” 
We never stop to consider what a wonderful, may we not 
say mysterious, process it is by which a child learns a lan- 
guage, for strictly speaking the child does not learn it all, 
he just absorbs it; it comes. Might we ask why or how? 
Present-day psychology is gradually coming to understand 


1I am indebted for the following analysis to Prof. George H. 
Mead’s lectures on Social Psychology. A text book by him, 
which is promised, will show the setting of the argument. 


2 The exceptions, which will occur to everyone, are due to the 
individual peculiarities of the hearer, and not to the language 
itself. 


3It igs not without significance that St. Paul’s words “Else if 
thou bless with the spirit, how shall he that filleth the place of 
the unlearned say the Amen at thy giving of thanks (euchar- 
istia), seeing he knoweth not what thou sayest?” (I Cor. 14:16) 
occur so soon after his account of the Institution of the Eucharist. 








The Value of the Sacraments 211 


something of the process. Somehow or other the child 
begins life with an irresistable impulse to talk; he is ‘‘made 
that way.” And everyone that comes into contact with a baby 
devotes as much as his time as he can spare, to talking to 
that baby, and some day he just starts out and speaks with a 
definiteness of meaning that dumbfounds his parents.* In 
the child’s experience the things come first, then social 
convention supplies the names for them. 

Language is one kind of gesture. Purely motor gesture 
was probably the earlier method of communication, and we 
still use it much to-day. It is “magical.” If you doubt this, 
take your stand on the street corner of a crowded thorough- 
face and gaze attentively up into space, and be convinced 
that gesture is positively magical in the silent and irresistable 
control it exerts on others. 

Perhaps the most frequent use made of gestures is when 
we are “excited,” or under emotional strain. We do not 
realize that we are expressing our emotion in this way, but 
again, it just “happens.” Sudden bursts of passion are al- 
ways associated with these demonstrative movements, and 
accompanied by other physical disturbances, ° and the quickest 
and surest way to get oneself into any particular emotional 
state is to stimulate it by going through the motions which 
represent it. If you “let yourself go” at the first feeling of 
indignation or resentment, you will soon find yourself in a 
pretty rage, and if, after you shouted FIRE in the theatre 
as suggested above, you bolted for the door like everybody 
else—merely to avoid suspicion, of course—the chances are 
that before you did get out you were pretty thoroughly 
scared, and thought yourself lucky to get out alive. 

Now there must be some fundamental reason why gestures 
have this power to suggest activity and to start it off, as it 





4cf. Josephine Daskam Bacon, The Autobiography of a Baby. 
5 On the various theories of the emotions vide Shand, op. cit., 
ut supra p. 44; McDougall, op. cit.; ut supra p. 45, chaps. 4 and 5. 


212 Sacraments and Society 


were. It is not enough to say it is the result of association of 
ideas, or of imitation, or the expression of an acquired habit. 
These are just mere names for it and do not explain it at all. 
But Darwin suggested a real explanation, in the form of a 
principle of action which he called “serviceable associated 
habits.’ ® What he suggested was that there was, in certain 
activities, a preservation value for the organism, which 
originally prompted them, and that this value-tone, or 
“feeling’’ or whatever you wish to call it, was in this way 
attached to or inseparably linked up with the act itself, so that 
when any sign of it appears, as in some preliminary gesture, 
the emotional tone immediately makes itself felt too. In 
this way the gesture becomes the symbol of the emotion, and 
because all other individuals of the same type of organism 
“feel” the same way, the gesture has meaning for them all. 
This has the advantage of giving us a non-intellectual 
explanation of the phenomenon we are considering. 

As we have already suggested, conduct or behavior is 
action directed toward a goal or purpose, and this same 
principle may be applied in the interpretation of such 
conduct. In other words, this is the principle we have all 
along been applying, in trying to discover from the result 
of any activity, the probable stimulus which provoked it. 
This carries us behind consciousness, since it will apply to 
habitual or other acts which are not consciously apprehended 
by the actor. Consciousness is an index of the purpose of 
an action, since it is only when several possible things can 
be done, under the circumstances, and we must choose be- 
tween them, that we are conscious of what we are doing at 
all. Sometime, long since, you decided, by some process of 
elimination if it ever presented itself to you as a problem, 
which shoe you would put on first, and since then you have 
not bothered about it, but if you stop yourself some morn- 


6 Darwin, Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals, (N.Y., 
1873), p. 28. 


The Value of the Sacraments 213 


ing in the act, you will realize how perfectly hopeless it 
would be for you to have to decide this momentous question 
every morning, and with nothing really significant to deter- 
mine your choice.” When we have to decide between several 
possibilities of action, what we really do is to consider their 
ends in the making of our choice, and hidden behind this 
choice is the mechanism (if we may use this word of a 
psychological process) by which it is brought about. This 
ability to adapt present conduct to a future end distinguishes 
what we call self-consciousness, and the organization of our 
habits through what we call “mind” makes the necessary 
motor control possible. , 


We are used to thinking of man as being able to carry 
out his ideas and put them into action, as we say, but we 
overlook the significant fact that in doing so he thinks of the 
end he wishes to accomplish, and scarcely gives a thought to 
himself. For we control things by thinking of them, keeping 
our “eye on the ball,” as it were, and not by concentrating 
our attention on self; we must put our attention on how we 
are doing a thing, and so thoroughly have we accustomed 
ourselves to doing this that for the most part the ultimate. 
end of our activity is wholly forgotten. What we call per- 
ception, is the selection from all the confused mass of 
sensations which come to us from the world ‘“‘without,” of 


7I once heard Pres. King of Oberlin, in a public lecture, recite 
a limerick about a centipede that fell into the ditch when it was 
asked by a frog how it could manage so many feet, which illus- 
trates such indecision: 


“The centipede was happy quite, 

Until the frog for fun, 

Said ‘Pray, which leg comes after which?’ 
Which wrought his mind to such a pitch, 
He lay distracted in a ditch, 

Considering how to run.” 


(Rational Living, (N. Y. 1914) p. 194). 


214 Sacraments and Society 


some single stimulus or group of stimuli and making that, 
for the moment, the monarch of the little realm ‘“‘within.” § 

Meaning is primarily “objective” because it is primarily 
just possible conduct, and it enters into its “subjective” in- 
heritance only through the alchemy of experience. Experi- 
ence puts mew wine into old bottles ® but though the bottles 
burst from the force of the ferment within, not a drop of the 
wine is lost! By that witchery we call “memory,” we are 
enabled to strip off the imagery from experience, and to 
weave out of it a magic mantle, clad in which we go forth to 
conquer our world. 

But no one of us is alone in the world and our conduct 
must be adjusted to the conduct of others, in fact it seems 
most likely that the only way we can ever come to a con- 
sciousness of self at all is through the gradual synthesis and 
fusion of our percepts of others. In the veriest reality we 
are, at first at least, what others think of us, and it is al- 
most impossible ever to escape this influence.*° Social con- 
duct assumes some sort of adjustment to ends on the part of 
the “other” as well as the self, and so it differs from mere 
physical (individual) conduct in that the “other” may be af- 
fected and in some sense directed or controlled by it. Hence 
the peculiarity of a social act is this ability which it possesses 
to influence the activity of other selves. Ordinarily, as we 
have just now said, the significance of any of our own acts 


8 What wisdom was that, begotten of insight or experience, 
which wrote into the Liturgies of the West, as the Collect for 
the First Sunday after the Epiphany, the single supplication: 
“grant that they may both perceive and know what things they 
ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfullly to 
fulfil the same.’ ? 

9 How pedantic is the Revised version! 

10 cf. Cooley, C. H., Human Nature and the Social Order, (N. Y., 
1912), chaps. 5 & 6, “The Social Self.” ‘There is no sense of 
‘Tl’, as in pride or shame, without its correlative senses of you, 
of he, or they.” (ibid., p. 151). 





EE ee es a ae ee ee 


The Value of the Sacraments 215 


lies not in the act itself, much less in its inception or the 
particular stimulus which provokes it, but in its purpose, in 
the finished activity of which it is but an insignificant ele- 
ment. With the social act, on the contrary, it is quite the re- ~ 
verse. It is at the very beginning, as in a fencing match, 
that the act is most pregnant with possibilities, and only by 
quick perception of its significance and rapid adjustment ac- 
cordingly, can it be of any use to discover this significance at 
all. The familiar and somewhat crude expression of this 
important truth is found in the phrase ‘“‘he never knew what 
struck him.” In the social act, then, control of the activity 
is present from the very start, and its inception is generally, 
if not always, conscious and deliberate. It is this early adap- 
tation which also characterizes what we know as gestures, 
and our analysis of the way in which this adaptation has ap- 
parently come about should throw some light on the relation 
of gestures to emotion and their uncanny power to influence 
the activities and emotions of others beside ourselves. 

The reason that gestures have any value at all, seems to 
lie in this very power to provoke a response in others, and 
the most striking example of this is found in language, which 
is but an elaborate and conventionalized vocal gesture. The 
tenseness or suspense of expectancy with which we await 
the development of some activity on the part of another, 
which has a vital interest for us, will throw some light on the 
generation of emotion through gesture. For the social act, 
of which we are speaking, is always more full of what we 





11 Judd, C. H., Psychology. (New York, 1907), pp. 248 ff. 
“Articulate sounds are simplified forms of experience capable, 
through association with ideas, of expressing meanings not 
directly related to sounds themselves.” (ibid. p. 257) 

Watson, op. cit., p. 333: “The upholders of the image say that 
you can not only think it by silent speech, but that you can also 
imagine the act and the movement will follow. Our contention is 
that in thought the words must be uttered silently before the 
habitual act arises.” 


216 Sacraments and Society 


call “imagery” because it represents to us more possibilities 
in the way of our own response to it, and yet we must elimi- 
nate most of these, and concentrate on a single act, with a 
single purpose in view. It is by the suppression of the larger 
part of these conflicting motor impulses that we succeed in 
accomplishing this concentration, and this damming up of 
our impulses produces the emotion. We find in the gesture 
a weapon which, like the fiery sword of the Guardian of the 
Garden of Eden, turns every way; it affects equally both 
ourselves and others. 

We have already said it in a multitude of ways, but here 
we must repeat that the religious rite is a form of gesture, a 
means of compelling human activity.2 We saw that “magic” 
was not of necessity “mechanical” because it made allowance 
for the possession of an adverse will, but contrived to com- 
pass its conquest. Freedom of the will is of no more use 
than coin of the realm, unless it be put to work. It is the 
forming of the autonomous will that lies at the basis of 
character, and all the ennobling efforts of man have been 
concentrated on the single problem of teaching the indi- 
vidual to “abhor that which is evil and cleave to that which 
is good.”** This has always been the desire of any religion 
worthy of the name, and is the sole end and purpose of the 
Christian religion, and throughout the ages the appeal of re- 
ligion has been to man’s emotions. 

It has become a fad to-day to talk much of “intellectual” 
religion, and to decry the remnants of emotionalism which still 





12 “Now it is admitted by all of us that words spoken or faintly 
articulated belong really in the realm of behavior as do move- 
ments of the arms and legs. If implicit behavior can be shown to 
consist of nothing but word movements (or expressive move- 
ments of the word type) the behavior of the human being as a 
whole is as open to objective control as the behavior of the lowest 
organism.” (Watson, op. cit., p. 21). 


13 Romans 12:9. 


The Value of the Sacraments 217 


cling to the cult practices of Christianity.4 But we may dis- 
cern signs of a change of sentiment in this respect, and all 
the labors of the anthropologists and students of the social 
sciences are hastening on the change, for we are coming to 
see that what we call intellect or understanding is not an end 
in itself, but only a means to the control of conduct, and much 
less powerful in exerting such control than the more primi- 





i4Such expressions are quite common in controversial litera- 
ture, but to these I do not refer. They are also seriously ad- 
vanced in discussions of the basic principles of religion. I may 
illustrate what I mean by the following quotations: 

“Sacramentarianism, although it claims a divine sanction, has 
in reality more affinity with the magic of primitive religion: 
it is in substance a survival, not a true development of the reli- 
gious idea.” (Galloway, op. cit., p. 190) 

“No ceremonial religion has been able to resist the fallacy 
of the opus operatum, the efficacy of the deed itself. Since the 
ceremonial acts possess intrinsic value, that value increases with 
repetition: the accent is on the performance rather than on the 
motive.” (ibid. 186.) 

“But the sacrametal doctrines and customs of religion spring 
from the living and perennial superstition of the masses. They 
exist not merely because it is the fashion to cultivate them, but 
also because the magic and mystery which they involve are native 
to unenlightened minds.” (Here follows a quotation from Craw- 
ley and one from Sumner to illustrate the “magical” parallel.) 

“When human nature rises above primitive conditions into 
scientific concepts and into a broader, many-sided civilization, the 
earlier customs are transformed by new content or entirely dis- 
carded.” (Ames, Psychology of Religion, p. 192) 

In striking contrast to these opinions is that of Prof. G. B. 
Smith, (Social Idealism, pp. 25 ff.) that the Sacraments were 
“signs” of communion with Christ through his spiritual body, 
the community, and were not magical. 

The strictly reactionary doctrine is expressed by Dean Groton: 
“But this general view of the relationship of sacramental com- 
munion can hardly fail either to reduce Christianity to a natural 
religion among the rest or else lift all religions to the level of 
Christianity. The ‘internal force’ must be everywhere one and 
the same,—either a mere natural energy or a divine energy— 


218 Sacraments and Society 


tive and more instinctive emotions. Intellect is ethical, rea- 
son is its substance, and it has led mankind on toward the 
good, and altered the visage of his vision, but for all that the 
basic emotions remain the stronger incentives to conduct. 
“There may be little new in the idea that Christianity, plus 
civilization, has literally brought nothing into man’s emotional 
religious experience, which he did not possess before, yet 
one has only to lay the savage examples beside the serried 
ranks of confessants, and it will be brought home to the 
mind with an overwhelming freshness and force. The es- 


and therefore, the results everywhere must stand on the same 
general plane. We must stand by the testimony of the Biblical 
records until that testimony is proven wholly mistaken and it 
is demonstrated that the religion of the Bible is no more excep- 


tionally divine than that of Mithraism or Gnosticism.” (The 


Christian Eucharist and the Pagan Cults, pp. 104-105.) 

Certain words appear as bugaboos to certain people. To the 
person of “Evangelical” bent, the word “magic” is such a word, 
in connection with religion. On the other hand to one who has 
grown up amid “Catholic” traditions, the word “natural” is taboo 
in religion. But fortunately for religion, science is relentlessly 
forcing these two classes of people to join forces, and it may be 
found that the magical is the natural, after all. 

But what both sides to this dispute overlook, is that there is 
room. for a really natural and scientific explanation of the de- 
monstrable results of an earnest and trustful use of a religious 
rite, without in any way encroaching upon the realm of meta- 
physcs, or entering into the discussion of where the “natural” 
stops and the so-called “super-natural” begins. 


From the point of view of individual psychology the religious 
rite, specifically the Christian sacrament, has a distinct func- 
tional value in that it supplies something to do in the way of 
expressing a religious impulse. Just as the habit of telling the 
truth can be established by doing it, and the ethical sentiment 
of respect for truthfulness thus strengthened, so there is a very 
real sense in which the “grace” of one’s Communions may be 
increased by making them often. In such ways the sentiment 
of obedience to God’s will may be strengthened and developed 
to withstand the strain of some real moral crisis. 


The Value of the Sacraments 219 


sence of emotional religion (which for the object of the 
present enquiry we have just agreed to differentiate from 
those processes evolving intellectual belief) the stuff of this 
feeling has not changed since man went out from his cave 
to slay the sabre-toothed tiger, and to adore the stars of 
heaven. Terror and adoration filled him then; and to the 
same terror and adoration he now gives alien names.” 

Such is the conclusion of the authoress of a most illumi- 
nating and challenging book, the purpose of which was the 
examination of the published autobiographies and religious 
confessions of four hundred and fifty-one individuals, whose 
names are published as an appendix, and upon such a com- 
prehensive study of “cases” this conclusion rests.° To me 
it furnishes overwhelming evidence of two things, the in- 
curably religious nature of man, and the indestructably emo- 
tional character of religion. 

It seems to me that we have to choose between two alter-’ 
natives, either no religion or the continued and increasing 
use of religious rites. Perhaps this is a dangerous alter- 
native to suggest, but I find myself, after our study of the 
history of religious rites, unable to escape it. For if we ad- 
mit, as I believe we must, that the essence of religion has 
always been emotional, then there is no reason to believe that 
it will cease to be so, and the only known way of controlling 
this emotion is through the use of religious rites. * 

Throughout the history of the Christian Church there have 
been, to my knowledge, but two societies of professing 
Christians who have entirely rejected the use of the Sacra- 


15 Burr, Mrs. Anna Robeson, Religious Confessions and Con- 
fessants, p. 421. This is but a subsidiary conclusion of her in- 
vestigation. Her main contention is in line with her intellect- 
ualist presuppositions, and illustrates the condemnation of emo- 
tional religion to which I have referred. It is a surprise to me 
that after such a truly scientific and inductive study of facts 
she should interpret them in the way she appears to do. 

16 Obviously the individual can learn to control his emotions, 


220 Sacraments and Society 


ments, the Society of Friends and the Salvation Army. It is 
not at first obvious that both of these have instinctively 
evolved or hit upon substitutes for the Sacraments which 
serve, for them, the purpose of generating religious emo- 
tion, but it seems open to question whether these substitutes 
serve equally well as a means of control, in the sense of pre- 
venting wholly unedifying excesses. The Friends accom- 
plish it by suppression, inhibition, elimination of everything 
in the way of outward decoration or beauty which might in 
any way interfere with perfect abstraction. Silence in “meet- 
ing” unless moved by the spirit, and the chilling and depress- 
ing barrenness of the Meeting House all aid in heightening 
the emotional effect. Have you ever been at some solemn and 
depressing function, such as a large state funeral, when si- 
lence hung like a pall over the multitude, and been suddenly 
overwhelmed with a feeling that if you could not do some- 
thing you must involuntarily, scream, even in spite of your- 
self? If so, you can understand how, by a strange paradox, 
the simplicity of the Friends led to their being commonly 
known as Quakers. 

The Salvation Army represents the opposite extreme. 
Their method is the method of the primitive savage, of the 
prehistoric votaries of Dionysus, with dance and song and 
cymbal and drum, with torches and harangues on the streets 
at night. The description which we quoted from Farnell *” 
of the primitive Dionysiac orgy might almost have stood for 
these present-day enemies of the devil. This is the method 
of excitement which also prevails to so large an extent in the 
so-called “revival meetings’ among some of the Protestant 
denominations.** The type of emotional reaction here is 
similar to that at a base-ball game, where the “fan’’ is car- 
or rather to give them proper outlet, but I am speaking of social 
control. 

17 supra p. 117. 


18 Davenport, F., Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals, (N. Y. 
1905). 


Ee 


The Value of the Sacraments vet 


ried away by the excitement and the shouting, and smashes 
his new straw hat to a pulp on the back of his unresponsive 
or sweetly oblivious neighbor, as the case may be. 

The purpose of the Sacraments is to supply such a social 
control that the wastefulness of the vagaries of neither of 
these extremes shall be necessary. The Sacraments of the 
Church, if faithfully used, supply the opportunity for “con- 
version” at the time when it should normally come about, 
and also at such other times of stress as peculiar circum- 
stances may demand. But the Sacramental system of the 
Christian Church does not make any provision for revival; 
it eliminates it. The religious life of the individual, it is 
assumed, will begin in infancy and continue under Christian 
nurture, without break or catastrophic upheaval but with 
orderly development and growing fulness, through the whole 
of life. The possibility of relapse is always present, to be 
sure, but the danger of it is minimized by the ever-present 
influence of social control which supports and reinforces the 
will of the individual. 

As has already been made quite evident the one and only 
pre-requisite to make the action of the Sacraments possible is 
belief in their efficacy, but this belief and confident trust in 
them makes the results sure.1® There is ample justification for 
that insistence on the necessity of faith, in this sense, on the 
part of the recipient, which has always been present in Chris- 
tion theology, both Catholic and Protestant. But if our analy- 
sis of the psychology of gesture has been correct, the Cal- 
vinistic contention that the Sacraments are mere signs of a 
changed relation which has already taken place, and do not 
produce any effect in themselves, is farther from the truth 
than the much callumniated ex opere operato theory of the 
medieval Schoolmen. Each is, however, but a half-truth, the 
Protestant theory insisting on the moral act of the will, the 
TYCO A RRR dE oc AAD sc) XAT a 


19 The sophisticated quibble of the theologians that the grace 
of the sacrament was suspended, as it were, (in posse) by a lack 
of consenting faith, is an expression of this fact. 


222 Sacraments and Society 


profession of faith in God and the turning to him, which 
finds its expression in the use or acceptance of the sacra- 
ments, while the Catholic view insists on the positive emo- 
tional reaction and sense of exaltation and purification which 
results from this use. 

The sentiment which accepts the dictum that the Sacra- 
ments are sacred rites, hallowed by immemorial use and certi- 
fied by the experience of generations of the faithful who have 
found solace and strength in them, is essentially unrational, 
like all sentiments, and is taken in by the baptized infant 
with its mother’s milk.2° This sentiment grows under social 
influence and by didactic additions, and becomes that element 
of Christian faith which underlies the use of the Sacra- 
ments.?4- Without this underlying faith the continued use of 
any rite becomes impossible, or purely conventional and 
sterile. From the dawn of Christianity this belief in the 
efficacy of the sacramental means of grace has been an es- 
sential part of the professed faith of the Church’s members, 
and it has gradually become more and more explicit in the 
Creeds and more prominent in theology. Since the reforma- 
tion, however, the right of this “sacramentalism” to recogni- 
tion as an integral part of the faith has been strenuously 


20 The behaviorist school of psychology has nothing to say of 
sentiments. The sense in which I use the term will be shown 
by the following quotations. “These relatively permanent dis- 
positions are what we designate our sentiments. Love, friend- 
ship, enmity, etc., are the names by which we know such charac- 
teristics.” (Angell, Psychology, p. 392); “Mr. Shand points out 
that our emotions, or, more strictly speaking, our emotional 
dispositions, tend to become organized in systems about the 
various objects and classes of objects that excite them. * * * 
The oftener the object of the sentiment becomes the object of 
any of the emotions comprised in the system of the sentiment, 
the more readily will it evoke that emotion again. * * * (McDou- 
gal, Social Psychology, pp. 122, 127). 

21 Such elements in the Creeds as belief in the Holy Catholic 
Church, or “one baptism for the remission of sins.” 


The Value of the Sacraments 223 


challenged, and since the days of Hume a growing spirit of a 
much vaunted scientific intellectualism, within the ranks of 
professing Christians, has joined forces with a materialistic 
and agnostic science, to belittle and controvert the continued 
use of what they consider “empty ceremonial.” 2? One of 
the greatest polemical questions within the Church to-day, the 
all-engrossing problem of Church Unity,?§ centers round this 
very use of sacraments, and no definite plan for reuniting the 
sundered groups of Christians can ever be evolved, much less 
carried into execution, till the kindred question of the use or 
disuse of the Sacraments has been faced and settled. It is 
the disunion of Christendom which has dethroned the Sacra- 
ments from their former place of preeminence, and I am 
thoroughly convinced that no other force but these same 
Sacraments can ever bind the sundered members into one 
“body” again.?4 


22 The tribute paid to the Catholic system by Positivism in 
borrowing its ceremonial, must not, however, be overlooked. 

23It is important to distinguish internal from external dis- 
putes. Of the validity of a belief in God I have nothing to say; 
I assume that I am addressing those who are already convinced 
of its truth. 

24 Troeltsch writes as follows of the future: “Taking it all in 
all, we may fairly say that the religion of personal conviction 
and conscience, basing itself upon history, but not petrifying 
history into dogma, is the form of religion which is homogeneous 
with and adapted to modern individualistic civilization.” 

(The italics are mine.) 

“There remains, as a stand-by for the coming days of oppression 
and decline of freedom, that which has given to the whole fabric 
a goodly portion of its strength—the religious metaphysics of 
freedom and of a faith based on personal conviction. * * *” 
(Prot. and Prog., pp. 208 ff.) 

I do not know what he anticipates in the way of oppression 
and the restriction of freedom, but I am convinced that the 
danger of our American civilization, at least, lies in unrestrained 
individualism. If we are to have a religion which rests on his- 
tory, it must perpetuate the use of the Christian Sacraments, 


224 Sacraments and Society 


The inevitable tendency of the emphasis on individual ex- 
perience which is the distinctive mark of modern thought, 
was toward a revolt against institutional control, and found 
its fullest expression in Protestantism. But the mark was the 





and I know of no other way in which individual freedom, and a 
faith based on personal conviction can be as certainly assured 
or as efficiently fostered. And the use of the Sacraments guar- 
antees that element of social solidarity and control which is 
indispensable to progress. This it was which the proposed 
system of Dionysius the Areopagite lacked, and which all forms 
of individual “mysticism,” so-called, lack. 

“The ecclesia, the meeting, the gathering together, the con- 
gregation has a far higher importance than for the mere purpose 
of unity in an outward function. It is the means by which the 
most potent agent in religious life, collective suggestion, is 
brought to bear upon the mind.” (Brinton, Religs. of Prim. 
Peoples, p. 178) 

As to the serious practical problem of uniting Catholic and 
Protestant once more in the observance of the historic religious 
rites, my own conviction is that if we can get away from “petri- 
‘fied history” and back to living history we shall realize that it is) 
the actual effects that the sacraments produce which constitute 
their certificate of validity and worth. 

Probably the “astral’ number of seven sacraments will not 
satisfy the requirements, but we shall need a sacred rite to help 
us through the social climaxes of life, as they occur. (On the 
psychological value of a “retreat” at times of physiological crises, 
vide Marrett, op. cit., pp. 194 ff.) 

Baptism of infants is no longer opposed even by the Baptists, 
who have come to realize that it supplies a distinct need. Chris- 
tian children are born into the Church, and this fact should find 
its social expression. But for adults who have not grown up 
in the Church—and alas their number is great—another and 
different rite is needed. It must rest upon a conviction of faith, 
and provide for the reality of a “conversion” to a new life. 
But for children who are brought up under Christian nurture, 
no catacylsmic conversion can be natural, nor should it be pro- 
voked. It is for such as these that Confirmation is intended, 
and it supplies an opportunity to come, through a real emo- 
tional experience to a conviction of Christian “selfhood.” If the 


The Value of the Sacraments 225 


mark of Cain. It led to science and the arts but it led away 
from God.*®> The break from the “blessed community”?¢ 
could lead to but one end—the ultimate disruption of the 
group solidarity. But this result does not follow immedi- 
ately. On the contrary, it manifests itself gradually, and in 
two different types of “independence.” The one is the total 
rejection of religion; the other the rejection of all social re- 
straint in religion, and the profession of the Mystic, that 
“all is God and God is all.” To-day, however, science is lay- 
ing its benumbing and relentless grasp upon the very “‘mys- 
tic union” itself, declaring it to be but the result of mis- 
guided ignorance and self-imposed deception. The only 


truth be told, the Catholic Church has never worked out this 
problem of the transition from adult to infant baptism, and the 
consequent separation of the official reception into the Church 
at the hands of the Bishop, from the purification of renouncing 
the old life of disobedience. It is just here that the chief quarrel 
between Protestant or Congregational and Presbyterian systems 
and the Episcopal form of government is the most serious. 

Anointing with oil no longer has any place in daily life, and 
for this reason its symbolism has been lost. And our knowledge 
of disease makes any rite of healing of little value in most cases, 
but the effect upon the patient in nervous disorders should not 
be overlooked. Confession and Marriage are both of them sadly 
needed as the means of conferring strength to live consistent 
Christian lives. 

When the Church shall be reunited, and disagreeable matters 
which affect our strongest sentiments, such as those relating to 
the authority to minister in the Church, have been settled, when 
this comes, I say,—the centralization of the chief authority in the 
presiding officer, whether he be called Bishop or not, and the 
possession by a minister, of a certificate of eligibility, valid 
throughout the whole of Christendom, will be as natural as the 
office of President on any Board of Directors, or the holding of a 
degree from any university or a certificate from a State Board 
of Health. 

25 Genesis 4: 16-21. 

26 cf. Royce, J., The Problem of Christianity, (N. Y., 1913), 
IT, 57-105, 


226 Sacraments and Society 


refuge for the individual is to cast himself back on the bosom 
of the “community” which gave him birth. This does not 
mean that each individual is not to continue to be forever 
responsible for his own acts, but that as he is dependent upon 
the community for the moral standards by which he is 
judged, so also shall he be dependent upon the community 
for the moral dynamic which can enable him to live up to the 
responsibilities which the community lays upon him. This 
strength and support the Church was founded to supply, 
and it does so, through the ministration of the Sacraments. 


“The method of science is a method of limitation. A 
purely natural science is of necessity excluded from the study 
of spiritual laws.?7 But it would be a mistake to conclude 
from this that the facts of spirit and those subject to natural 
inquiry are contained in mutually exclusive spheres. It is a 
notion like this which constitutes a grave danger for spiritual 
thought. There has been a tendency among those who 
believe in spirit, in freedom, in will, and personality, to speak 
as if the advance of the observed range of natural law was 
a menace to the kingdom of freedom; as if the place of free- 
dom began where law was left behind, so that it became the 
interest of those who believe in freedom to keep back the 
advancing waves of manifest law. (The advance is, of 
course, the advance of a manifestation, for the law itself is 
now what it must always have been.) That notion haunts 


27 The most striking proof of this is the “behaviorist move- 
ment” in psychology. Watson says: “The consideration of the 
mind-body problem affects neither the type of problem selected 
nor the formulation of the solution of that problem.” (op. cit. 
p. 9); “Psychology, as the behaviorist views it, is a purely ob- 
jective, experimental branch of natural science which needs in- 
trospection as little as do the sciences of chemistry and physics. 
* * * Tn this sense consciousness may be said to be the 
instrument or tool with which all scientists work. Whether or 
not the tool is properly used at present by scientists is a prob- 
lem for philosophy and not for psychology.” (ibid. 27). 


Se ee 


The Value of the Sacraments ead 


the minds of many people who believe in God, or who believe 
in man; and consequently it has been accepted and absorbed 
by men upon the other side. The other side has seen an 
enemy in the name of freedom as if it challenged the integrity 
of law. * * * * On the contrary, freedom never has its 
chance excepting in so far as the free person not only is 
existing under a system of law, but has discovered its nature, 
and so is able to lay hands upon its advantages.” 28 


Perhaps the most powerful influence in the realm of edu- 
cated thought to-day is what we may call a special outgrowth 
of the theory of evolution. I mean the “biological point of 
view.” Wherever you turn you find the impress of biological 
thinking, and it has become trite to speak of society as an 
“organism.” 7° The Church’s time honored terminology 
which referred to the Christian Community as the “Body of 
Christ” was meant to teach this very truth, but its significance 
has now begun to be grasped anew and with deeper insight. 
And so it is that both from the weakness of disintegration 
which was almost an inevitable outcome of the growth of 
individualism, and from the pressure of scientific thought, 
come two powerful forces which drive Christian men to 
consider with more sympathy than has been the habit of the 
past three centuries, what there may be of value in the 
sacred rites commonly known as Sacraments. It seems to 
me that social psychology has gone a long way toward reveal- 


28 have borrowed these words, which express my thought 
better than I could do in my own, from that excellent book by 
the Rev. Father Waggett, S. S. J. E., little known I fear outside 
of Anglican circles, entitled The Scientific Temper in Religion. 
(London, 1905). 

29 The single and fatal objection to this, except as a metaphor, 
is that science does not believe that organism can inherit ac- 
quired characters, while the single function which civilization 
fulfils is to make this possible for society. Vide another book by 
Fr. Waggett, Religion and Science, (Lond. 1909) esp. chap. 12: 
“Society Regarded as an Organism.” 


228 Sacraments and Society 


Ing to us the positive value of religious rites as a means of 
social control, and the greatest need of our civilization to- 
day is for some means of controlling and reinforcing the 
moral conduct of its members, ®° such as the Sacraments 
supply. The sentiments and emotions of men are beyond 
the reach of ‘science, on its own admission. History has 
manifestly demonstrated that for endless generations these 
same sentiments and emotions can resist the influence of 
intellectual development and cultural change. The only way 
to alter or to improve the customs and habits of the com- 
munity is by creating a public opinion or sentiment which 
shall be able to reach them at their fountain and source in 
the emotions, the sentiments, the beliefs and the habits of the 
individual. It is to mould and direct all these and to pattern 
them after the type of Humanity set before us in the person 
of Jesus that the Sacraments of the Christian religion are 
intended. If God be revealed anywhere it is within the 
human heart! Man “knows that it is only in his own heart 
that the conviction can possibly be established; that if there 
is a root of communion with God it is a root planted in his 
own life, and that if there are outward facts which can, as 
it were, teach his heart how to spring, and point for him the 
direction in which to aim his venture after the unknown God, 
these facts must lie in the region of the nature which is like 
his own, in Human Nature.” * 


30 “If a state can develop a system which permits to the in- 
dividual a free play of effort and character, which gives him 
freedom and a copious life with no consciousness of a command- 
ing influence forcing him, and yet stands beside the weaker 
elements in its organization and gives them conditions preserva- 
tive of their strength and well being, it may have found its 
stability and be proof against internal rot and strong against 
attack from without.” (The Chicago Sunday Tribune, July 25, 
1915: Editorial) 

31 Waggett, P. N. Scientific Temper, pp. 242-243. The con- 
clusion to which these words there lead is to the Humanity of 
Jesus, but I venture to apply them to the Sacraments, which are 


The Value of the Sacraments 229 


To-day we are in a better position than ever before to 
realize that science and religion do not move in the same 
realm, though they both deal with the same facts. As we 
look out upon the universe we discover in it signs of mechan- 
ical process and signs of moral freedom, both of them sub- 
ject, so far as we can discover, to certain definite laws. What 
these laws are we are slowly discovering after much patient 
experiment and investigation, and psychology has shown us 
some of the laws of the activity of man’s subjective life 
which we call his “soul.’””, When man approaches the majesty 
of the unknown, believing himself to be in the presence of 
God, he assumes an attitude of humble trust, and seeks to 
enter into that personal relationship which we call com- 
munion, or oneness of spirit. 

Underlying this attitude of changed relationship, which has 
occupied so much of our discussion, there is a very real 
psychic experience, which we have referred to as either cath- 
arsis or ecstacy. The “thrill” of the solemn religious rite 
results from the fact that the whole of the present social 
group is “of one mind” and the removal of all sense of 
adverse judgment or conflicting opinion, produces, by the 
action of what we call psychic laws, the consciousness of 
purification and exaltation which constitutes the “reality” of 
the effect, to which experience testifies. *” 

It is because of the demonstrable facts here set forth, that 
Christian experience throughout the ages has insisted on the 
“supernatural” value of the Sacraments. 


often spoken of as an “extension of the Incarnation.” vide. Wil- 
berforce, S., The Doctrine of the Incarnation (Lon. 1879), p. 275. 

32 “Against the critical arguments, advanced against religion 
in the name of natural science, other arguments may be arrayed; 
and if they are strong enough they will avail eventually to make 
in the mind a clear field and no favor. But upon this clear field, 
after the antecedent prejudices have disappeared, conviction can 
only arise by the acquisition of positive proofs drawn from the 
world of spiritual fact.” (Waggett, ut supra, 231-232.) 







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INDEX 


Acts, The Book of: 

2:88, 146 n. 8; 2:41, 146 n. 8; 

6:6, 147; 8:14ff, 147; 8:18, 148; 

9:18, 147; 10:37-38, 146; 10: 

47-48, 147; 11:2-18, 149; 13:3, 

147; 15:1-6, 149; 19:3-5, 146; 

19:6, 148; 19:18, 159 n. 26. 
aetiological myth 

see myth. 

Agon, 94. 
Ahriman, 132, 134. 
ALCUIN: 

De virtute et vitiis 27, 187 n. 

21. 
Algonkin Manitou, The, 31. 
ALVIELLA, G. d’, 189 n. 37. 
AMES, E. S., 30. 

Anaitis, 115. 

Angels: orders of in English lit- 
erature, 204ff. 

anointing 159, 165 n. 46, 171, 183 
n. 23, 225. 
see Unction. 

Apostolic Canons, 166. 

Apostolic Constitutions: 

7:42, 165, 167; 7:48, 167. 
“Apostolic Decrees,” 150 n. 17. 
Apostolic Fathers, The, 164. 
APULEIUS: Metamorphosis, 128 

n. 29, 187 n. 44. 

see Metamorphosis. 

Arapaho Indians, 76, 77. 
Arapaho Sun Dance, The, 77. 
ARISTOTLE: 177. 

Politics 5:7, 107 n. 16. 


ARNOBIUS: Adv. Gent. V. 26, 
120 n. 5. 

art: related to religion, 35 n. 15, 
63 n, 19, 107. 

Arunta, 22, 23. 

Ashanteeland, 68. 

Assam, 103. 

“association,” 51. 

Associations Religieuses chez les 
Grecs, 1238. 


astrology: influence of, 137, 174, 
Let 

Astrology and Religion among 
the Greeks and Romans, 137, 
L746 4 Es 

Atargatis, 137. 

Atonement, Day of, 103. 

Attis, 115, 1386 n. 48. 

attitude: change of, 66, 68, 74, 
229. 
see heart. 


AUGUSTINE: 
Catech. 50, 183 n. 28. 
Civi. Dei, 11:6, 207 n. 67; 18: 
14, 123 n. 14. 
Confes. 1:1, 196 n. 44. 
Cont. Faust. 19:9, 183 n. 23, 
Enchir. 46, 183 n. 23. 
Epis. 163, 146. 
Joan. 80:3, 183 n. 28. 
influence of, 185 n. 29, 198. 
Aurohuaca Indians, 104. 
Avesta see Zend Avesta. 
Avesta Eschatology, 1380. 
Aztecs, 104. 


Babar Archipelago, 69. 
Bacchai, 117. 
see Orpheus. 
Baptism, 145ff, 151, 154, 159, 171, 
172, 199: 
in the name of the Lord, 187. 
see infant, 
initiation. 
Baptism—Confirmation, 156, 164- 
165. 
see Confirmation. 
BARDY, G., 180 n. 16. 
BARNABAS: 
Epis., 19:12, 159 n. 27; 164. 
BASIL: 
Epis., 199, 176; 258, 131. 
Spir. Sanc., 27, 187 n. 34. 


202 Index 


Behavior, 45 n. 9, 48 n. 15, 80, 
215 n. 11, 216 n. 12, 226 n. 27. 
belief see Faith. 
BUERLIER, E., 162. 
BICKERSTETH, C., 166. 
BIGG, C., 198. 
biology: influence of, 227. 
birth see New Birth. 
Bishop: the title, 164, 225. 
blessed: abode of, 123. 
see departed. 
blood: use of in rites, 29, 41, 56, 
92, 114-115, 117, 188 n. 37. 
defilement from, 65, 102, 151, 
152° on, +17. 
purification by means of, 103, 
108, 112. 
BOAS, F., 34, 39. 
“Body, The,” 152, 223, 227. 
Body and Blood of Christ, 201. 
see Eucharist. 
Presence. 
BONNER, C., 187 n. 36. 
BREASTED, J. H., 129. 
BRIGHTMAN, F. E., 161. 
BRINTON, D. G., 29, 98. 
BUDGE, E. A. W., 127. 
Bundahis: I. 3, 184; IV., 1338. 
burial, 167. 
BURNET, J., 189 n. 38. 
BURR, ANNA R., 116. 


CAMPBELL, L., 124. 
Cappadocians, The, 
205 end. 
Carnival in Thrace. 
see Thrace. 
CASE, 8S. J., 120 n. 3. 
CASSIAN, Inst. Coen. 5:5, 182 
n. 21. 
catharsis, 105, 107, 108, 112, 139, 
199 
see purification. 
Ceram, island of, 92. 
ceremony: origin 39ff, 44ff, 53, 
79, 80, 88, 223. 
modification of, 84, 86. 
see initiation, 
rain, 
Rite. 


193 n. 41, 


Chalcedon, Council of, 138. 
CHEETHAM, S., 138. 
Cherokee Indians, 60. 
Cheyenne, The, 33. 

Indians, 33, 76. 
chrism, oil, 165. 

see Unction. 

chrisom, vestment, 188 n. 37. 


Christian Hucharist and the 
Pagan Cults, The, 138, 218. 


Christian Worship, 158 n. 25, 186 

n. 31, 187.n. 35, 189 n. 37. 

CHRYSOSTOM: Joan., 28, 146. 
Church Unity, 223ff. 
Churching of Women, 152 n. 17, 

167. 

see purification. 

CICERO: 

Divinat. ii. 14.84, 178 n. 138; 
li. 60:124, 178 n. 18; ii. 69: 
142,"118 Ds 15. 

Natura Deo. ii. 3:8, 245° 48 
68, 25 n, 28; ili. 11: 28, 178 
n. 13. 

circumcision, 23, 89, 151. 
CLEMENT, Alex.: 


Paed. 1:6, 188 nn. 37; Baa 
167. 
Protrep. 2 pass., 168; 2:21, 


120 n. 5; 2:29, 181 n. 18374 
pass. 127 n, 22; 12 pass., 
165. 

Strom. 1:1, 166; 1:21, 181 n. 
18; 1:43, 189 n. 38; 1:45, 189 
n. 38 ; 2:3, 165; 3 pass., 146; 
6:4, 181 n. 18; 6:13, 164, 
167; 6:17, 189 n. 38, 

Columbia, South America, 104. 


CLEMENT, Roman.: I. Epis. 2, 
164. . 

Colossians, Epis.: 2:19, 153 n. 
19. 


communion, mystic 95, 112, 115, 
120, 122, 133, 185 n. 40, 161 n. 
17, 162, 168, 188 n. 23, 206, 
228-229. 
see Eucharist. 

Confession, sacramental 159, 166, 
186, 225 n. 24. 


Index 


Confirmation: 

bearing on Church Unity, 
224 n. 24. 

relation to Baptism, 90 n. 6, 
148 n. 12, 149, 164. 

separated from Baptism, 165. 

see hands, imposition of 

Conflict of Religions in Early 
Roman Empire, 72, 173, 188 n. 
37. 

contemplation, 200. 
see illuminati. 

Theoretics. 

convention, 50, 210. 
see custom. 

conversion, 96, 221, 224 end. 
see heart. 

I Corinthians: 1:13-17, 147; 1:23- 
SE 1GLs 72 e57 1 38) 168s ni 23: 
7:12ff, 158 n. 24; 8:1-2, 151; 
14:16, 210 n. 3. 

II Corinthians: 1:22, 164; 6:14ff, 
158 n. 24. 

Cosmos, 180. 

“Cosmic mystery,” 174. 

COOLDY,: C.»H!, 214 n:/10; 

Cora Indians, 13. 

CORNFORD, F. M., 118. 

Council of Chalcedon, 195 n. 42. 

Florence, 170. 

Jerusalem, 149. 
CRAWLEY, E., 152 n. 17. 
creation from nothing, 192 n. 


CREED, J. M., 179 n. 16. 
Creek Indians, 27. 
Cronos, 128 n. 29. 
Cults of the Greek States, 33 n. 
LY; 246, 118) 127,140; 
Culte Imperial, Le, 162 n. 34. 
Cults, Myths and Religions, 29, 
65, 189 n. 37. 
She rN FB. 115, 129; 128, 183, 
37. 
custom, 80, 82, 228. 
see habit. 
mores. 
Cybele, 131, 136. 
cyceon, 120. 
CYRIL, Alex.: 
Ad Julian. 1:30-35, 181 n. 18. 
CYRIL, Jeru.: 
Catech., 13: 21, 188 n. 37. 


233 


CYPRIAN: 
Donat., pass., 186 n. 32. 
Epis., 11, 166; 67-74, 186 n. 32, 
72, 165. 
Lapsis, pass., 186 n. 32. 
Mortal., 4, 182 n. 21. 


Daramulun, 17ff. 
DARWIN, C., 212. 
DAVENPORT, F., 220, 
DAWKINS, R. W., 117 n. 43. 
Deacons, the Seven, 147 n. 11. 
death, mystery of, 119, 167. 
defilement 
see blood. 
impurity. 
de fide, 170. 
see fides. 
orthodoxy. 
Demeter, 121, 138. 


detxvipeva 141 n. 61. 
departed, place of in heaven, 176. 
see blessed. 
Destiny, 178. 
see Fate. 
Heimarmené 
Development of Religion and 
Thought in Ancient Egypt, 129. 
DEWEY, J., 51. : 
Dieri, Tribe, 43. 
DIDACHE: 4:14, 164; 7:1, 187 n. 
34; 7:3, 187 n. 34; 10:4, 173. 
DIETRICH, A., 140. 
diffusion of ceremonial 
myth, 86. 
DILL, 8S., 130 n. 32. 
DIO CASSIUS: 
Hist. Rom., 53:1-5, 181; 67:14, 
162. 
DIOGENES LAERT:: 
Proem. 6, 131 n. 35. 
DIONYSIUS AREOP.: 
elements of his system, 198. 
influence of, 196ff. 
on Thos. Aquinas, 203. 
John Damascus, 205. 
works of, 197. 
Cel. Hier., 2:3, 200 n. 56; 
3:1, 198 n. 48; 200 n. 52; 
3:2, 198 n. 50; 8:2, 200 n. 
52; 9:3, 205, 


and 


234 


Eccl. Hier., 1:ii, 200; 1:1ii, 
200; 38:411:2, 202; 3:1ii:3, 
2013 48:141:7, 202; 3:111:8, 
202. 82011712, 2013 '3 :411;518, 
201: $8:1ii:14,.186: n. 81; 
3:111:19, 201; 4:iii:10, 200; 
5:1:3, 200 n. 52; 5:1:5, 200 
n. 64; 5:1:6, 200 n. 52; 
6:i:1, 200 n. 52; 6:1:2, 200 
T1663 731233; 202: 
see also list of references 
in Thos. Aquinas, 203. 
John Damascus, 205. 
Dionysius, 95, 116, 117 n. 43, 118, 
138, 140 end, 220. 
origin of name, 122 n. 6. 
do ut des theory of sacrifice, 109. 
Doctrine: 
growth of emphasis on, 163, 
184 ff. 
sacramental, 170ff. 
secondary character of, 12, 27, 
121, 149, 162, 183 n. 28, 206- 
207. 
Doctrine of the Incarnation, The, 
229 n. 31. 
Donatist Controversy, 186, 189, 
194. 
DORSEY, G. A,, 32, 33, 77, 34. 
DORSEY, J. O., 34 n. 13. 
DOUTTS, E., 64. 
drama, 33, 35, 37, 107, 140. 
SowuUsvov 61 n. 16, 73, 141 n. 51, 
162. 
dualism, ethical, 131, 134, 151. 
DUSCHENE, L., 158 n. 25, 172. 
DUSSAUD, R., 99. 


Earlier Epistles of St. 
The, 158. 

Early Greek Philosophy, 189 n. 
38. 

Early Religious Poetry of Per- 
sia, 130, 1382. 

Early Zoroastrianism, 130-134, 
135 n. 41, 176 n. 11. 

Earth, worship of, 69 n. 7, 70 
n. 8, 123. 

ecstacy, 18. 


Paul, 


Index 


see enthusiasm. 
orgy. 
ciuaouévy 180. 
Hine Mithrasliturgie, 140, 177 n. 
12. 


Eleusis: 
Mysteries of, 120ff. 
their origin, 121 end. 
emotion in religion, 
216ff, 219, 228. 
emotional reaction, 51, 105, 211, 
222. 
see value. 
EMPEDOCLES: Frag. 115, 124. 
“enthusiasm,” 116. 
Ephesians, Epistle: 
1:18, 164; 4:15-16, 153; 5:23, 
153; 5:31-32, 152. 
Epiklesis, 206 n. 64. 
epiphany, in initiation, 94. 
émonteta 189. 
ethical dualism, see dualism. 
evdatovia 139. 


96, 206, 


see heart. 
Eucharist, 152, 160, 163, 164, 171, 
199, 201, 202, 
as myth of the Crucifixion, 162. 
see communion, Presence, 
sacraments. 


Eudoxus, 176. 
evil: idea of, 100, 102. 
moral, 151. 
evolution, influence of, 192, 227. 
Evolution of Religion, The, 65, 
102, 109. 


Evolution of Early Christianity, 
The, 120, 124, 132, 140, 142, 
144, 158, 179 n. 16. 

Execution, ceremony of, 42. 

ex opere operato, 221, 217 n. 14. 

Exodus, 12:26-27, 84. 

exomologesis, 159, 164, 

exorcism, 136. 
see purification. 

experience, 50, 80, 87, 185, 190, 
192, 194, 214, 224, 229. 

Expression of Emotion in Man 
and Animals, 212 n. 6. 


Index 


Faith: necessary, 68, 87, 107, 221- 
222. 
opposed to works, 194. 
see fides. 

FARNELL, L. R., 33, 65, 111, 11 
116,14 7/268: 

fasting, 148. 

Fate, 179, 180. 
see destiny. 

FAUSSET, W. Y., 187 n. 33. 

fear, effects of, 45, 100, 106. 

fides: explicita, 83. 

implicita, 83, 86. 
see Faith. 
orthodoxy. 

Fiji Islands, 112. 

firmament, 132 n. 40. 

FIRMICUS MATERNUS: 

Err. Prof. Rel., 18, 120 n. 5. 

FISKE, J., 29. 

flamines, 26. 

FLETCHER, ALICE C., 33. 

Florence, Council of, 170. 

Folkways, 98. 

Fonctions Mentales dans les So- 
ciétiés Inferieures, Les, 86, 179 
ni; 

fornication, 151 end. 

FOUCART, P., 120, 128. 

Four Stages of Greek Religion, 
139 n. 49, 177, 187 n. 36. 

FOWLER, W. W., 24. 

FRAZER, J. G., 18, 38, 57. 

Friends, Society of. 
see Quakers. 

FRUED, S., 106. 


Gallatians, Epistle: 3:3-5, 147 n. 
9 


GALLOWAY, G., 206 n. 66, 217 n. 
14, 

GARDNER, P., 139. 

garlands, use of, 139. 

Garos, tribe of Assam, 103. 

GASON, S., 55. 

GENNEP, A. van, 30. 

gesture, 210ff, 215. 

GLOVER, T. R., 72. 

Gnosis, (Gnosticism), 176 n. 11, 
179-181, 199 n. 51. 

Golden Ass, see Metamorphosis. 


235 


Golden Bough, The, 18, 14, 20, 26, 
27, 29, 37, 38, 41, 54, 55, 57, 59, 
63, 65, 68, 69, 70, 71, 91, 92, 98, 
103, 104, 1138, 115, 174. 

GOMES E. H., 15. 

grace: Augustinian, 194. 

in posse, 221 n. 19. 
sacramental, 184 n. 27, 
194, 195, 218 end. 

GRANGER F., 179 n. 16. 

Great Mother of the Gods, The, 
136 n. 43. 

Greece and Babylon, 115. 

GREGORY I., Pope: 

Moral. 31:17, 182 n. 21. 
GREGORY Nazianzus: 

Adv. Julian. 1:70, 131 n. 36; 

£289,131) Diab. 

Orat., 40, 188 n. 37. 
GREGORY of Tours: 

Glor. Confes., 76, 143 end. 
Grizzly Bear Dance, 31. 
GROTON, W. M., 138. 
guardian Angels, 

see Angels. 


Habit, 40, 45, 49, 52, 74, 212, 2138. 
see custom. 

HADDON, A. C., 58. 

hands, imposition OF s1L4AT Bald; 
148, 156, 183 n. 23. 
see Confirmation. 

HARNACK, A., 141, 154, 175. 

HARTLAND, E. S., 63 n. 19. 

HARRISON, JANE E., 16, 94, 
108, 112. 

HATCH, E., 178. 

heart, change of, 78, 94. 
see conversion. 

heavenly spheres, 176ff, 180. 
see planets. 

Hebrews, Epistle: 
13:4, 158. 

Heimarmené, 178, 180. 

Hellenistischen Mysterien-relig- 
ionen, Die, 158, 178 n. 12, 189 
Doae: 

Hellenistich-réomische Kultur, 
Die, 119 n. 2, 158, 172, 178 n. 
12, 181 n. 18. 


9:22, 108; 


236 


Heracleitus, 125. 

heresy, beginnings of, 189. 
see orthodoxy. 

Hermeticism, 179. 

HERODITUS: I. 1381-140, 131. 

HEWETT, J. N. B., 68 n. 19,65. 

HEWETT, J. W., 65. 

HIPPOLYTUS: Refut. Haer., 
Bk. V., 187 n. 45, 178. 

History of Dogma, 141, 154 n. 
22, 182 n. 22, 183 n. 23, 184, 197 
n. 46. 

History of Harly Christian Lit- 
erature, 164, 165, 173, 189 n. 
38. 

HOCKING, W. E., 97. 

hocus pocus, 54. 

Holy Eucharist, 
see Eucharist. 

Holy Order, sacrament of, 166. 
see Ordination. 

“Holy Things” in Hastern Litur- 
gy, 202 n. 61. 

honey in Mysteries, 120 n. 5, 187. 

HORACE: Odes, 3:13, 72. 

HOWITT, A. W., 16, 43. 

HUGO ST. VICTOR: De Sac., 
Bk. 2, pt. 3, 183; pt. 6ff 183. 
Human Nature and the Social 

Order, 214 n. 10. 
Hymn of the Kouretes, 95. 


Idolatry, 151. 
IGNATIUS: 164. 

Ad Smyr., 8, 167 n. 53. 
illuminati, 163 n. 36, 188 end. 
Iipira, tribe, 22ff. 

Immersion, triple, 187. 
immortality, 119, 121, 124, 126 

n. 21, 184, 137, 139, 166 n. 561, 

168, 179, 191. 

see resurrection. 
impurity, 100, 102, 106, 150, 181. 

see blood. 
individual, emphasis on, 142 n. 

52. 
indulgence, 166 n. 52. 
infant baptism, 148 n. 12, 224 

end. 


Index 


infinite, attribute in Plato, 191. 

Influence of Greek Ideas and 
Usages, 173 n. 3, 186 n. 31, 189 
n. 37 and 39. 

Imbros, Island of, 71, 73. 

INGE, W. R., 196 n. 42. 

initiation rites: 
description, 16, 22, 89ff, 92, 113. 
essentials of, 91, 94, 139. 
references on, 189 n. 37. 
significance of, 21, 88, 90, 96. 
taken into Xty., 146 n. 7, 149, 

187, 199. 

instinct, 45, 49, 51, 80, 97. 

Interpretation of Dreams, The, 
106 n. 14. 

Introduction a Vhistoire des Re- 
ligions (Dussaud), 99 n. 25. 
Introduction a Vhistoire Gener- 

ale des Religions (Alviella), 
189 n. 37. 
Introduction to the Literature of 
the New Testament, 158. 
Introduction to Social Psychol- 
ogy, 45 n. 9, 222 n. 20. 
IRANAEUS: 
Adv. Haer., 1.13:5, 166 n. 52. 
Isaiah, 30:22, 152 n. 17. 
Isis, Mysteries of: 126, 128, 138, 
142 n. 56. 


JACKSON, A. V. W., 130 n. 32. 
James, Epistle, 5:13, 159 n. 28. 
JAMES, W., 12. 
JEROME: 

Dial c. Luc., 8, 187 n. 34. 

Epis., 107, 181 n. 35, 142 n. 53. 
Jerusalem, Council of, 149. 
Jewish Law, uncleanness in, 150, 

L629. 7) 
Sacrifices, two kinds, 109. 


John, Gospel, 3:22, 146 n. 8; 
4:2, 146 n. 8. 

John of Damascus, influence of, 
193 n. 41, 205. 

JONES, W., 31. 

JOSEPHUS: 
Cont. Apion., 
67. 


2:16ff, 207 n. 


Index 


JUDD, C. H., 215. 
JUSTIN: 
Apol., I. 61, 163, 187 n. 34, 
n, 37; I. 66, 163, 168. 
Cohort., 38, 181 n. 18. 
Dial cx Try. 70, 131,168 3) 78, 
18145117, 1633 218,181) nn) 18: 


188 


nxavaooig 199. 

see catharsis, purification. 
Kakian, association, 92. 
Kei Islands, 68. 
KENNEDY, H. A. A., 158. 
FING HS Cee 213) n't: 
KOURETES, Hymn of the, 95. 
KROLL, W., 179 n. 16. 
KRUGER, G., 164. 
Kurnai, tribe, 85, 90. 
Kybele, see Cybele. 


LACTANTIUS: 

Inst., 7:9, 181 n. 18. 
LAKH, K., 158. 
LANG, A., 15. 
language, vocal gesture, 210, 215. 
legend, 32ff, 28, 30, 34 n. 13. 
Ae yOuEvo. 121, 141 n. 51. 


LEITZMAN, H., 153 end. 
LENORMANT, P., 120 n. 5. 
Lenten Carnival, see Thrace. 
LEO I.: Epis. ad Episc., 166 n. 
52. 
Leviticus: 
4:1ff, 110; 4:3-21, 109; 5:1 to 
6:7, 110; 6325-30, 110; 6:30, 
109; 7:1-7, 110; 7:15-18, 110; 
7:20-21, 110; 12 pass., 152 n. 
17; 16 pass., 103; 22:29-30, 110. 
LEVY-BRUHL, L., 85, 86 n. 8. 
life, mystery of, 153, 167. 
LIGHTFOOT, J. B., 164 n. 41. 
Litany, Prayer Book, 97. 
Liturgies Eastern and Western, 
161 n. 32. 
Lord’s Supper, 154, 160, 172. 
see Eucharist. 


237 


LUCIAN: 
Doer. Concil., 9, 131 n. 35. 
Menippus, 6ff, 1381 n. 35. 
Jup. Trag., 8, 181 n. 35. 


Luke, Gospel, 22:17-20, 161 n. 
30 


Lupercalia, 188 n. 37. 


LUPTON, J. M., editor, 154 n. 
22. 


Macedonia, 71. 
Magi, influence of, 133 ff, 135, 130 
ne8SL76" nee kl: 
magic: 54ff, 38, 47, 61 n. 16. 
difference from religion, 65ff, 
74, 78-79. 
essentials of, 60, 65. 
kinds of, 98, 58, 63 n. 19. 
not mechanical, 62. 
Magic and Fetishism, 58. 
Magie et Religion dans lV Afrique 
du Nord, 64. 
Magna Mater, see Cybele. 
Making of Religion, The, 15. 
Malay Magic, 65. 
mana, 112, 152 n. 17%. 
manitou, 75. 

MARETT, R. R., 16, 60, 62, 68. 
Mark, Gospel: 1:4-9, 145; 6:13, 
160 n. 29; 14:22-25, 161 n. 30. 

marriage, Christian, 158. 
depreciated, 157, 158 n. 23, 165 
n. 50. 
impurity in, 157. 
see Matrimony. 

MARSHALL, N., 166 end. 
Matrimony, Sacrament of, 152, 
167, 225 n. 24. 
Matthew, Gospel: 26:26-29, 161 

n. 30. 


MAU, A., 128 n. 27. 


Mazdaism, 130 n. 33. 
see Mithra. 


McCLINTOCK, W., 31 n. 8. 
McDOUGAL, W., 45 n. 9. 
MEAD, G. R. S., 180 n. 17. 
MEAD, G. H., 185 n. 28, 210 n. 1. 


Meaning of God in Human Ez- 
perience, The, °7. 


238 Index 


“means of grace,” 108, 184 n. 27, 
200. 
see Sacraments. 

memory, witchery of, 214. 

Mengap, myth, 14. 

Metamorphosis: 11 pass., 178 n. 
12; 11:9, 202 n. 61; 11:15, 188 
n $7; 11:21, 141 n. 50; 11:23, 
148 n. 11; 188 n. 37. 

milk and honey, 187. 

Paradise Lost, Angelic Host in, 
205. 


MILLS, H., 130. 


Mind of Primitive Man, The, 39 
45 n. 8. 

Ministry of Absolution, The, 166 
end. 

ministry, sacred, 164, 167. 
grades of, 199, 147 n. 11, 225 n. 
24, 

Mission and Expansion of Chris- 
tianity, The, 154 n. 22, 175 n. 
8. 

Mitra, 131. 
see Mithra. 

Mithra: 
conflicting ideas of, 132. 
identified with Ahriman, 134. 

Yima, 133. 
Mediator, 132 n. 40. 
Mysteries of 129ff, 116 n. 36, 
131. 
Sun God, 132. 
Mithraic Mysteries, 181 n. 19. 
Mithraism, 130 n. 33. 


MOFFAT J., 158. 
MOONEY, J., 60 n. 14. 


morality and religion, 35 n. 15. 
mores, 41, 81. 

see custom. 
MOULTON, J. H., 130 n. 32, 176 

rs Bae Be 
Mudthis, 16, 20. 

see traditio symboli. 
MURRAY, G., 139 n. 49, 177. 
Murring, tribe, 16, 21, 90. 
Muron, 200. 

see Unction. 


MVOTHOLOV : 


UVOTY|OLOV : 
in New Test., 155. 
Ephesians, 152 n. 19. 

Mystéres d’Eleusis, Les, 120 n. 
5, 127 n. 28, 202 n. 61. 

Mysteries, Christian, 144ff, 167. 
see Sacraments. 

Mysteries, Pagan: 119ff. 
essentials, 138ff, 141 n. 51. 
influence, 144ff, 172. 
origin, 119. 
purpose, 120 n. 5. 
terminology, 173 n. 3, 198. 
zenith of, 142. 
see Dionysus, 

Mithra. 

Mystery, term for sacraments, 
153. 

Mystic Rose, The, 152 n. 17. 

mysticism, weakness of, 224-225. 

Mysticism, Its Nature and Value, 
196 n. 438, 197 n. 46. 

myth: 
aetiological, 34, 73, 95, 185. 
confused with legend, 34 n. 18. 
definition of, 31. 
description of, 28ff, 141 n. 61, 

160, 161. h 
separation from rite, 34-35, 37, 
73. 


Eleusis, Isis, 


Myth, Ritual and Religion, 16, 
16, 20, 29. 

Myths of the Cherokee, 60. 

Myths and Myth Makers, 29. 

Mysteries of Mythra, The, 129 n. 
32, 180 n. 38, 1385 n. 40. 

Mysteries Pagan and Christian, 
Fhe, 188 n. 47, 141 n. 51, 145 n. 

BD, Leo tstoks 


Native Tribes of Central Aus- 
tralia, 22, 28, 82. 

Native Tribes of South Aus- 
tralia, 55 n. 3. 

Native Tribes of South-East 
Australia, 15, 55, 85, 90. 

natural religion, 218. 

Neoplatonism, 189ff, 178 n. 12, 
184, 193, 195. 


—— 4. 


Index 


Neoplatonism (Bigg), 198 n. 49. 


New Birth, 96, 139, 146 n. 7, 147 
n. 9, 153 n. 19, 188 n. 36, 199, 
see Baptism, heart, initiation. 

New Caledonia, 89. 

New Chapter of Greek History, 
139. 

NEWELL, W. W., 30 n. 5. 

Northern Tribes of Australia, 32. 


Notcs 180. 
Novatian, 186. 
Novatian schism, 189, 186. 


Old North Trail, The, 31. 

Oldest Church Manual, The, 173 
n. 5: 

Omaha Indians, 33. 

Orders, 

Ordination, 149, 166. 
see Holy Orders. 

orgy (Ooyta) 116, 117, 139 n. 48, 
220. 


see Dionysus. 

Oriental Religions in Roman Pa- 
panism, 115, 119, 126, 127, 128, 
131, 186 n. 42, 137 n. 47, 140, 
142, 143, 175 n. 7, 176 n. 11, 
181 n, 19. 

ORIGEN: Cont. Cels. 1:2, 137; 
5:38, 127. 

Origins of Christianity, The, 155. 
Ormazd, 132. 

Orphic Brotherhoods, 118. 

Orpheus, 122 n. 9, 123ff. 

Orthodoxy, 189 n. 38, 206. 

Osiris, 126. 
see Isis, Serapis. 

Osiris and the Egyptian Resur- 
rection, 127 n. 24. 


Pagan Mysteries, see Mysteries. 
papiri, see Tebtunis. 
Parmenides, 125. 


Parseeism, 133. 
“participation,” 85, 92, 112, 141 
n. 61, 171. 


239 


see social control. 
Pathos, in initiation, 94. 
PAUSANIAS: I. xviii. 9, 127. 
Pawnee, The, 32, 37. 


Pawnee, Legend of the Lost War- 
rior, 35. 
peace-offering, 109. 
Penance, 159. 
see Confession. 
Penitential Discipline 
Primitive Church, 166. 
“penitentiary,” 166. 
Peripeteia, in initiation, 94. 
Persia Past and Present, 130. 
Peter Lombard, 184. 
phallos, emblem of Dionysus, 
122, 
philosophy, influence on religion, 
125, 189ff. 
Phrygia, 122. 
Phyla, Mysteries at, 123. 
Pithagoras, 124. 
planets, influence of 175ff, 178, 
179, 
names of, 176 n. 11, 


PLINY, Elder, Hist. Nat. 7;64, 
152. 


in the 


Younger, 
163. . 
PLOTINUS: Ennead iv. 8:1, 124 
n. 16; v. 5:12, 196 n. 44. 
PLUTARCH: Artazg. 4, 130 n. 36. 
Caesar, 61, 188 n. 37. 
Isis, 28 ff., 127 n. 22. 
Isis, 28 ff., 127 n. 22; 46 ff., 131 
nii35,° 132. n.°39. 
Romulus 21, 188 n. 37. 
Pomp., 24, 131 n. 34. 
Poimandres: 4:2, 180 n. 18; 4:8, 
180 n. 18; 9 pass, 180. 
Poimandres, Studien zur Grie- 
chish-egyptischen und frih- 
christlichen Literature, 178 n. 


Epis. 96-98, 


2. 
Pompeii, Its Life and Art, 128 n. 
nly 


Pompeii, temple of Isis in, 129. 

POWELL, J. W., 33 n. 11. 

Prayer, The Book of Common, 97, 
152 n. 17, 214 n. 8. 


240 


Presence, Eucharistic in Dio 
nysius, 201. 
theories of, 207. 
“primitive credulity,” 105 n. 10. 


Primitive Traits in Religious Re- 
vivals, 220 n. 18. 

Primitive Secret Societies, 89 n. 
5, 91, 113 n. 32. 

Principles of Religious Develop- 
ment, 206 n. 66. 


Principles of Sociology, 88. 


Problem of Christianity, The, 
226 n. 26. 


PROCLUS: Stoic. Theol. 72, 192 
n. 40. 


procreation, mystery of, 153 n. 
19, 


Prolegomena to the Study of 
Greek Religion, 122 n. 9, 124. 


Pronoai, 178. 


MOOOONDIS 202 n. 61. 
Protagoras, 126, 192. 


Protestantism and Progress, 199 
n. 51, 223 n. 24. 


Psalm, 51:10, 112. 


Psychology (Angell), 222 n. 20. 
(Judd), 215 n. 11. 


Psychology of Religious Experi- 
ence, 30 n. 5, 64, 217 n. 14. 
puberty rites, 89ff. 
see Initiation. 
public opinion, 228. 
see social control. 
PULLUS, Robt., Sent., 5:22 ff., 
184 n. 25; 7:14, 184 n. 25. 
purification, 98, 101, 112, 118, 146, 
150 in 81%, 6174, .1838..m., 23, 
222, 229. 
of women, 167. 
see initiation. 
pareys emphasis in Orphic cult, 
24, 


Quakers, substitute for sacra- 
ments, 220. 
Queensland, 89. 


Index 


Rain making ceremonies, 55, 57, 
14,0738. 

Rational Living, 2138. 

rebirth, 89, 112, 140 end. 
see New Birth. 

regeneration, 96. 

REINACH, S., 29 n. 3, 140 end. 

reincarnation, 140 n. 50. 

REITZENSTEIN, von R., 
158. 

religion, origin of, 74, 95, 100. 

Religion &@ Rome sous les 
Séverés, 130 n. 32. 

Religion and Science, 208 n. 68. 

Religion in Greek Literature, 
124. 

Religions of Primitive Peoples, 
98, 117, 224. 


140, 


Religion of the Semites, The, 
127109; (1112 
Religion to Philosophy, From, 


118, 123;'124, 139. 
Religious Confessions and Con- 
fessants, 116 end, 219. 
Religious Sentiment, Its Source 
and Aim, 29 end, 107. 
remission of sin, 160, 163, 165, 
166, 183 n. 23, 186. 
resurrection, hope of, 191. 
in initiation, 91, 94, 113-114. 
see immortality. 
“retreat,” spiritual, value of, 224. 
REVILLE, J., 130 n. 32. 
revivals, 220-221. 
Rite: 
description of, 13 ff. 
development from ceremony, 
79-81. 
power of, contingent, 87. 
primary and mimetic, 11, 14, 
15, 27, 87. 
purpose of, 
definite, 37, 38, 61 n. 16. 
group control, 87, 91, 96. 
initiation, 88ff. 
adolescence, 17, 22, 90. 
secret societies, 92. 
purification, 98, 101, 107, 150 
n. 17. 


Index 


relation to magic, 60-61, 66. 
myth, 30, 33-34, 38. 
religion, 72, 74, 78. 
separation from myth gradual, 
32, 35, 37, 73, 84. 
from religion im- 
possible, 209, 219, 
226 ff. 
Rites de Passage, 30 n. 4, 98, 99, 
174, 189 n. 37. 
(Ritual and Belief, 63 end, 84, 85, 
186 n. 30. 
Ritual Regarded as the Drama- 
tization of myth, 30 end. 
RIVERS, W. H. R., 64 end. 
ROBERTS, C. M., 166 end. 
Roman Festivals in the Period of 
the Republic, 24, 26 end, 72, 
118 n. 37. 
Roman Society: Nero to Marcus 
Aurelius, 130. 
Romans, Epistle, 12:9, 206; 14:- 
14k. 
Rome, Religious 
24, 27, 129. 


ROYCE, J., 225 n. 26. 
RUFINUS, 2:24, 142 n. 55. 


Festivals in, 


Sacrament, origin of word, 153, 
154 n. 21. 
sacramental meal, 115, 135 n, 40. 
see communion. 
Sacraments: appearance of, 152ff. 
doctrine, 170ff., 179, 182, 184, 
196, 201. 
function, 206, 218 end, 219, 221, 
226. 
importance, 147, 151, 162, 223. 
number, 160, 170, 183, 184 n. 
25, 203. 
rejection of, 219, 169, 217 n. 14, 
222-223. 
substitutes for, 220. 
theories of, 154, 193, 206-207, 
221-222. 
value, 209ff., 207, 227 ff. 
see grace. 
sacramentum, 154. 
in the Vulgate, 155 n. 22. 


241 


sacred, meaning of, 109. 
see mana. 
sacrifice, derivative, not primary, 
109. 
kinds of, 109. 
significance, 109, 112. 
theories of origin, 111, 109 n. 
20. ; 
St. Paul and the Mystery Re- 
ligions, 158 n. 22. 
SALLUSTIUS: Deis et Mundo 4, 
187 n. 36. 
Salvation Army, substitutes for 
sacraments in, 220. 
Saoshant, Avestan Deliverer, 134. 
scapegoat, 103. 


SCHAFF, P., 173 n. 5. 


Schoolmen, 183-184, 203, 
221. 


207, 


SCHRADER, O., 135 n, 41. 


Scientific Temper in Religion, 
The, 227, 228, 229 n. 32. 

Sea Dyaks, 14. 

Seal, of the Lord, 164. 

Semele, 122 n. 6. 

even ets 222, 228, 144, 225 n. 


Serapis, 126 n. 22. 

see Osiris. 
Serapeum: 

at Alexandria, 126, 142. 

Pozzuoli, 127. 

seven, sacred number, 178 ff. 

see Sacraments. 
Seventeen Years among the Sea 

Dyaks of Borneo, 15. 
Sex and Society, 51 n. 19. 
SHARPH, A. B., 196 n. 43. 
SHOWERMAN, G., 136 n. 43. 
Simon Magus, 148. 
sin, 179, 181. 

cardinal, 182. 

original, 194. 

Temission of, 222 n. 21. 

see remission. 

sin-offering, 109, 110. 

see trespass-offering. 
Singalong Burong, 14. 


242 Index 


SKEAT, W. W., 65. 

SMITH, W. ROBERTSON, 12, 
5 ia he 

SOCRATES: Eccl. Hist. III. 2, 
142 n. 54; V. 16, 142 n. 54. 

social control, 7, 42, 50, 52, 85, 
88, 95, 214, 216, 219, 221, 224, 
225, 228. 

Social Psychology, see Introduc- 
tion. 

SOLOMON: Eccl. Hist., 7:16, 166 
n. 52. 

Sophists, 125. 

SOPHOCLES: Oedipus, 124. 

soul, 124, 267, 167 n. 54, 176, 
183 n. 23, 191,. 229. 

Source Book for Social Origins, 
65. 

SQZOMEN: Eccl. Hist., V. 7, 142 
n. 54. 

SPENCER, Hymn of Heavenly 
Beauty, 203. 

SPENCER H., 88. 

SPENCER and GILLEN, 22, 32, 
41. 

spirits, departed, 123, 176. 

stars, 124, 174. 
see planets. 

Stoics, 178, 191. 

Stoicheia, 177 n. 12. 

STRABO: VII., frag 17-19, 123 n. 
13s ok 2909, 181) 0. 38h sR Va 
3:138-20, 131 n. 35. 

SUETONIUS: Claud. 25:4, 162. 

Summa Theologica, see Thomas 
Aquinas. 

SUMNER, W. G., 98 n. 24. 

Sun Dance, 76 ff. 

Worship, 123, 132, 138. 
supernatural, 218, 229. 
Sympathy, Stoic doctrine, 178. 
Syrian Goddess, 137, 174. 


Taboo: germ of moral law, 97. 
kinds of, 99. 
related to impurity, 149 ff. 
eee Hist. IV. 83-84, 126 
end. 
Talks to Teachers, 12. 
taveoBdAtov 115. 
Tebtunis Papiri, 128 n. 29. 


tedeimoic 199. 


teketat 139, 199. 
TERTULLIAN: 

Adv. Marc., 1:18, 181 n. 36; 
1:14,:187 n. 35; 4:9, 181 n. 
20. 

Anima, 39, 188 n. 36. 

Bap. 2, 146 n. 8; 5, 72 n. 12, 
181 -n, 363 677164 maak ae 
165 n. 46; 8, 164 n. 48; 20, 
166 n. 52. 

Carne Chris., 189 n. 38. 

Corona Mil., pass., 187; 15, 131 
n. 35. 

Poenit., 9, 166 n. 52. 

Praes. Haer., 7, 189 n. 38; 40, 
181 n. 35, 188:-n.. 87. 

Resur., 8, 183 n. 28. 

Usxor., 2:9, 159 n. 25. 

Thebes, 122. 


Themis, 16, 19, 25, 30, 31, 33, 34, . 


48, 49, 61, 70, 73,. 94, 965, 101; 
107, 109, 112, 118, 122, 140, 141. 

Theon, 138. 

theoria, 125 n. 19. 

Theoretics, 181 n. 18, 200. 

THOMAS AQUINAS: 

Summa Theologica, 175; I. i., 
Q. 84, ad. 4, 182 n. 21; IIL, 
Q. 60, II., ad. 3, 183 n. 238. 
references to Dionysius, the 
Areopagite, 203 n. 64. 
THOMAS, W.I1., 51 n. 19. . 
Thrace, 71, 122, 127. 
Carnival in, 117. 

Thrice Greatest Hermes, 180 n. 
17, 

Threnos, 94. 

Threshold of Religion, The, 16 n. 
13, 47, 60, 62, 64, 68, 81, 101, 
108, 224. 

The Todas, 64 end. 

Torres Straits, 69. 

totem, 23, 28, 32, 85, 91 n. 11, 
108, 140 n. 50. 

“traditio symboli,” 139, 186. 

tradition, 27, 40, 50, 80, 144, 185, 
187. 

Transubstantiation, 170, 207. 

Treatise on the History of Con 
fession, A, 166 end. 

trespass-offering, 110. 


ee 


Index 


TROELTSCH, E., 199 n. 51. 


Unction, 165, 167, 199, 
see anointing. 


Value-tone, 52, 212. 
see emotional. 
vanGENNEP, see GENNEP van. 
VARRO: Ling. Lat., 6:32, 25. 
Vendidad: VII. 40, 188 n. 37; 
Edy Teles: 
Vesta, Vestal Virgins, Vestalia, 
25-26, 
Vincentian Canon, 171. 


WAGGETT, P. N., 208 n. 68, 
227, 228, 229. 
Warramunga, tribe, 32. 


243 


WATSON, J. B., 45 n. 9. 
WEBSTER, H., 89. 
WENDLAND, P., 119 n. 2. 
WESTCOTT, B. F., 195 n. 42. 
WILBERFORCE, S., 229 n. 31. 
WOOD, H. G., 145 n. 2, 169 n. 
59. 
WOODS, J. D., editor, 55 n. 3. 


Yaroinga tribe, 89. 

Yasht: X. xxii. 86, 183; XXII. 33, 
$4, loa wa lk,, Looe 

Yasna: XXXII. 8, 183; XLV. 11, 

134, 

Yima, Avestan demon, 133. 


Zend Avesta, 129 n. 32. 
see Bundahis, Vendidad, Yasht, 
Yasna. 
Zoroaster, 130. 
Zoroastrianism, 176 n. 11. 
see Mazdaism, 
Parseeism. 





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